Very sad to hear about the passing of Gloria Steinem who I had the honor to work with during my career. In the 1970’s I was just starting out in television breaking the glass ceiling as the first woman audio engineer, camerawoman & editor at WCVB in Boston. At the time I was working on a feminist public affairs television show called “Your Place & Mine” produced by Eunice West. Eunice had one of the earliest all-women rock bands The Deadly Nightshade on who took me under their wing. When they were performing at Town Hall in NYC for Ms. Magazine’s 2nd Anniversary in 1974 Eunice invited me to fly down to attend the event stopping first at Ms. Magazine. There we met with Ms. editors who were more interested in me than Eunice which resulted in her abandoning me. Fortunately I was recused by Pam Brandt lead singer of the Nightshade & the band who took me home to Pam’s parents in Montclaire New Jersey & I flew home the next day. A few months later Gloria Steinem appeared on WCVB’s prime-time variety show “Good Evening, Good Morning” hosted by John Willis & Janet Langhart a spin-off of their highly popular morning program “Good Day!” that morphed into ABC’s “Good Morning America.” I was working the show so took the opportunity to approach Steinem to introduce myself to the feminist Icon. She then told me she had heard very good things about me from the Ms. editors I had previously met. I thanked her & left the studio momentarily to recover from the shock & awe that she knew who I was. Gloria & I worked together again in 1980 then lost touch. Rest In Power Gloria Steinem. (Image Christina Tarkoff)
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Gloria once wrote a letter to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe v. Wade decision, thanking him for saving more women’s lives than anyone in U.S. History. We could say the same about Gloria’s impact on women’s lives, because for decades she was at the forefront of the struggle for political and social equality and justice for women. She used her voice and writing to raise visibility for women and the issues of our time. We came to take it for granted that she would always be where she was most needed — at the podium, on TV, on the plane, on the phone, or at the computer — to make the ideal of social justice a reality. Her phrases have become mottoes of our time. She is well known for having been a founder of Ms. magazine and for her writing and media work. But she was also a co-founder and president of the political organization Voters For Choice, where for decades she worked tirelessly to elect women and pro-choice candidates up and down the ballot across the country, including the first pro-choice president in U.S. history. Her activism and fundraising directly transformed the U.S. Congress and state legislatures: Growing numbers of women are in these places because of the endeavors of Gloria Steinem.
Gloria, in her graceful, kind, and deeply intelligent way, changed the world we live in. For decades, she trudged through every airport in the country, in sandals and a trench, carrying her own suitcase, packed with a few black clothes, hair curlers, and steam iron, in order to speak to women — at conferences, town halls, consciousness raising groups. No group was too small to deserve Gloria’s time. This is how she built the new women’s movement. And for a good part of those trips, she insisted she be joined by her friends Dorothy Pitman Hughes and, later, Florynce Kennedy, two prominent Black activists who helped show that this women’s movement addressed race as well as gender.
She had a clever, often funny way to say just what was needed to surface feelings and ideas about where we belonged, what our inchoate yearnings meant, whether power was a word that women could and should embrace for ourselves, and how different power looked when held in men’s hands alone.
She helped so many of us find our voices and the courage to stand up for ourselves and for other women. Gloria’s work and legacy lives on in the women’s movement and the many women’s organizations she co-founded — Ms. magazine, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus, Women’s Action Alliance, Voters For Choice, URGE, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the ERA Coalition, Equality Now, Frontline Women’s Fund, Gloria’s Foundation, and, of course, the Women’s Media Center.
I believe that she lives on in the changed lives of many women who don’t consider themselves feminists or part of the women’s movement. I’ve met many such women who because of what Gloria said or wrote gained the courage to leave bad marriages, start their own businesses, persuade husbands to help with household chores.
Some of her quotes that have been most helpful for me:
“Feminism doesn’t lead to matriarchy. Feminism leads to democracy.” (paraphrased)
“My life’s ambition is to make white women as smart as Black women. Because the group of women who still vote against their own self-interest are white married women.”
“It’s not that women are morally superior to men, we just don’t have to prove our masculinity.”
I am so glad we co-founded the Women’s Media Center together and that I got to spend time with her strategizing, raising money, and going on the talk circuit to advocate for an equal place for women in media (one time, on The Colbert Report, Gloria, Stephen, and I made apple pie while talking about women and media, making the point that feminism is as American as apple pie). She made the hard work of organizing both meaningful and fun. She will always hold a special place in history because she lives on in each of us, in how we live, in so many of the decisions we make. I can’t believe she is gone — every moment we got with her was a blessing.
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