We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Gloria Steinem: Laughing Our Way to Liberation (Best Of)

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

GLORIA STEINEM – who dedicates her life to ensuring we know that we are not broken, but were born into a system intended to break us – lives in the DNA of millions who are giving birth to movements or to themselves. She reminds us why there’s nothing more radical than telling the truth of our lives, and listening to the truth of others’ lives.  She reminds us that leaving our lives unlived is no badge of honor.  She reminds us of the thirst-quenching, life-giving, revolutionary power of laughter.    She reminds us of the three different kinds of laughter, and that we can do hard things – like laugh our way to liberation.  About Gloria:  Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of Indigenous Peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. She lives in New York City.  TW: @GloriaSteinem IG: @gloriasteinem To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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so you won't be sad tomorrow. Here's how to sign up. Of course, I will never sell, give away, or do whatever people do with emails. Your inbox is safe with me. Go to Glenandola.com and you'll see a sign up box right at the top of the page. Just pop in your email and you're in. If you're on Instagram, head to my page, click the link in bio and tap sign up for newsletter. It's the second button. Enter your email and you're all set. Easy peasy. I can't wait to share this big exciting secret I've been keeping with you on Monday. I will see you in your inbox. Today on We Can Do Hard Things, we are speaking with and mostly listening to Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem is Gloria Steinem. She is a writer, lecturer, political activist, feminist organizer, and lifelong listener.

She is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts in Everyday Rebellions, and a founder of New York Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the National Women's Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women's Media Center in the United States.

Although she wants us to be linked and not ranked, it's true that she is widely regarded as the iconic leader of the second wave feminist movement. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and a listener. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles, and child abuse as roots of violence, in nonviolent conflict resolution in the wisdom of Indigenous cultures, and in organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

And in 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She lives in New York City and in the DNA of every woman who is trying to give birth to a movement or to herself. Welcome Gloria, thank you for doing so many hard things with such tenacity and wisdom and humor and most importantly, with the refusal to leave anyone behind. Well, thank you for that introduction. I'm already worrying about, can I live up to my

but I'm really looking forward to this talk today because I know I'm going to learn too. Oh my goodness. So we would love to begin where it all began with Ruth, your mother. Now, we would love to begin where it all began with Ruth, your mother. You knew your mother as a woman whose life was ruled by her mental illness, and by the age of 10, in fact, you were her caretaker. And later on, you learned that she was a pioneering journalist with huge ambitions and a man she loved, both of which she never pursued. In Ruth's song, which I reread all the time, you said of her, I miss her, but perhaps no more in death than I did in life. Oh, does that line speak to so much. Can you tell us what you meant by that? I think many of us had mothers who could not be fully their own talented, autonomous, independent selves.

And that's a source of sorrow for us and also in some ways we're living out the unlived lives of our mothers. I'm a journalist and I'm happy to be a journalist, but I'm sure that it had something to do with the fact that I knew that my mother had worked for the Toledo Blade and she used to show me how to fold a piece of paper to make a like a reporter's notebook in your palm before there were reporters notebook. I mean, I'm sure that I absorbed some of the love for it from her and the sorrow is that she should have been able to complete her own life and to continue with what she loved and she just couldn't.

Can you tell us about when you asked your mom about why she didn't pursue the love and ambitions of her life? Well, I knew that she had not actually left the Toledo Blade, the big local newspaper in Toledo, until my older sister, she's 10 years older than I am, was about six. So I realized that she had tried to continue even after she had a child to look out for, and even after she was married to my father, a wonderfully kind but kind of also irresponsible person. But I realized that it had been such a toll on her that she had had what was then termed a nervous breakdown, quote unquote,

and been unable to function, spent almost a year in a sanatorium. And when she came out, I think her spirit was broken. She felt she couldn't continue as she wished to. Yeah, and I love this part of, I think it's an on the road. When you said, why didn't you continue the ambition, go with that man who you were truly in love with, what did she said?

You, well then you wouldn't have been born. Yes, it's hard to argue with that. Yeah. But in your mind, you did argue with it. I did argue with that. I mean, he did say, but that would have been okay. And indeed, I said, but you would have been born instead. But that fate was the same for a lot of women.

And indeed, it still is. You know, there are a lot of women who still have to give up their dreams and their occupations in order to take care of children. It's still the case that women care for children more than men do, even though there's not a star in the East, children have fathers too.

I mean, fathers should be equally responsible. So it's better because of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, all the great social justice movements, but it's still unequal, very unequal. And you realized that later, that what you had when you were young, attributed to some personal or individual failure

in your mother, you realize that it was actually this structural failure, that it wasn't that she was crazy, but that the system that she was born into was crazy. And you dedicate your life to making sure that women know that they are not broken, but they were born into a system that was intended to break their spirits. Can you talk to us about talking circles and how they change everything in terms of people understanding that they are not crazy, but they're all part of this system that is making them feel that way.

I think this simple act, whether it's a talking circle or two women at a kitchen table or whatever it is, of being able to tell the truth about your feelings and your life experience and be heard and hear someone else's truth is how we understand the collective truth. It's possible to understand it from reading statistics and so on,

but I think it's much more likely if we hear other people's personal stories that we identify with. So every social justice movement that I'm aware of started out that way. The civil rights movement started in black churches in the South with people testifying about what happened to them.

The anti-Vietnam War movement started with a few men resisting going off to what was an unjust war in the first place. And there's nothing more basic or radical than telling the truth and listening to the truth from other people. In so many photographs of you and your organizing partners, whether it's you and Bella Abzug, Flo Kennedy, Dorothy Pittman Hughes, or Wilma Mankiller. You all seem to be laughing.

There's so much joy and laughter. We have to understand how this is possible after so many decades of fighting against this unrelenting bullshit. How were you and are you so full of laughter instead of bitterness? Well I think we need each other. I'm not sure that if I were isolated I would be laughing.

Right? Maybe. But laughter is crucial, you know, because laughter turns out to be the one emotion that can't be compelled. It's a proof of freedom. And in many Native American cultures, there's a god of laughter who is neither male nor female and connects the known world to the unknown world. You can make somebody afraid, obviously. You can even make someone feel they're in love if they're kept isolated and dependent for long enough, but you can't make them laugh.

And I just love that as a proof of freedom. And laughing together is such a communal experience. And I think we should beware of churches and temples that keep us from laughing. You know, wait a minute, what is that about? Right? I can't stop thinking about the laughter as proof of freedom because, Gloria, one of the things that makes me so furious about myself is when I giggle. Like it's compulsory at something a man says that isn't funny. It's like I'm in the middle of this mandatory scripted, like it's my job in any public square

to reward a man for mediocrity or bullshit. The other evening I was at dinner with a guy and it was a work thing, so there was a power differential. And I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I really couldn't in that moment because there were other people there. But I swore to myself, what I'm not gonna do is laugh. I'm not gonna laugh at any of the things he says and then expects me to laugh.

And Gloria, it felt like a war. He would talk and then I would refuse to giggle. And then he looked confused and then furious. And then once he said something so arrogant that I actually burst into laughter and he looked like he wanted to kill me. Well, now that's very interesting. You've raised a whole other frontier of laughter that I wasn't thinking about. I was thinking of the kind of sincere

irresistible desire to laugh and you're thinking about compulsory laughter as an expected response to bullshit or whatever. So thank you for saying that. From now on, I should talk about the resistance to phony laughter. Fake laughter, right? It felt like the bravest thing in the world. I felt like I am a warrior of non-laughter. And then, Gloria, I think about like Christine Blasey Ford

when she's talking about the laughter of the men when she testified and she said, what is indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. There's something about laughter that is so fraught with power and I guess proof of freedom. Yes, well, that's, yeah, that's a belittling kind of laughter. Yeah, no, I agree. Because when you think about it, well, that's, yeah, that's a belittling kind of laughter. Yeah, no, I agree. Because when you think about it, yes, the one that can't be compelled is the actual

axiomatic response to something where it's just the reflection of your connection and joy and solidarity with that person. You get them. But then the fake laugh that you're talking about, Glennon, like I think of a fake laugh is exactly like a fake orgasm and a fake orgasm is exactly like a fake laugh. Both are intended to placate the outside while slowly killing you inside. Because it's this idea that it isn't for you.

It's for keeping the outside steady. Keeping steady, yeah. We're giving up on our right to have that pleasure and enjoyment and instead placating the moment and the power dynamics that we're in. Right and it's such a form of internal control because it isn't as if there's anything forcing you, you know, it's an acquiescence internally. So, okay, this is the impulse. Not to laugh is just as important as being able to laugh. Yes.

I realized that with Tish, I was at the grocery store with my daughter and some dude said something that was really dumb and I giggled. And Tish looked at me as if I had betrayed the earth. And I had. Well that's great. How old is she? She is now 16 but she's been fighting the fight since she was about three. No well that's great because that's yes the younger people around us can be great correctives. Yeah.

That look. That look of betrayal, yes. I'm at this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. No. If this is how intense Nova Kane sounds. Ah! Oh, wow. Imagine how it looks. Is there more? Yeah, big time. Nova Kane, only in theaters March 14.

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Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. It might be easy for people to think of you as a superhero who happens to be made for conflict. I think of Glennon in this way too. But you talk all the time about how you actually hate conflict. You cry when you're angry. Yes, I do hate conflict. And I guess part of the reason that I became a writer was so

I could deal with conflict in a peaceful setting. And the French who have a phrase for everything have a phrase, mode de scollier. It's the words that you think of on the staircase on the way out that you should have said and didn't say. So if you're a writer, you have a place for those words. But whether it's laughing or not laughing or saying what you really think, it's all about the right to be authentic and not to be so governed by the shoulds of life, what you should do, that it takes over your body, your face,

your laughter, and even your voice. Yeah. I think I was telling my sister, we had read something that you wrote about laughter and I was telling her that the thing that makes me the saddest that my mom does is giggle when she should. Whoever who has said the thing. And the thing that makes me most joyful is when my mom laughs from her belly and it looks

ridiculous. She's like hyperventilating. And it's when I see my mom the most free. And it is often when she's with her sisters or her grandkids. And yeah, I guess it has to do with bodily autonomy. Yeah, and authenticity. Have you told her that? No, but she'll listen to this.

So, hey mom, love that about you. Great. Hey mom, I'm sending you my love too. And laughter. A laughter of your own. Yes. Perhaps that's, we should do that, we should say that as well as a room of your own. A laugh of your own.

Yes. Speaking of bodily autonomy, you say that the root of sexism is controlling reproduction. And many people think of reproductive justice as kind of one slice of the pie. Why is it that you believe that every aspect of liberation is predicated on that? Well, it's the most universal and the most basic. I'm not saying that people who are wage or domestic workers without rights, it's not that that's necessarily immediately connected to reproduction. But the very definition of patriarchy is controlling women's bodies as the means of reproduction because we happen to have wombs. And there were many centuries and cultures before patriarchy.

It wasn't always this way. The power to give birth was a reason why women were equal and powerful and not something to be controlled. I remember sitting once with women in the Kalahari Desert and they were showing me the natural growing herbs that they used for contraception and abortifacients and that they also used to increase fertility. So obviously ever since there have been human beings, and this is probably true

of animals too, there have been ways of increasing and decreasing fertility according to the food supply or how many children or cubs you already have. I mean, it's always been present. And isn't that part of how the witch trials started, looking for women who were using herbs to control rejection? Yes, yes. And witches got the reputation for, quote, eating babies, unquote, because a woman would go in to see a witch pregnant and come out un-pregnant. That was very sinister. And the witch trials, of course, went on not only in Europe, but here too in New England.

So the PR hasn't changed much. No. I'm dying to ask you about this. So something I'm constantly learning is that one can be a feminist who is white and not be a white feminist. Because white feminism is a brand of feminism that seeks more proximity to hierarchical power instead of the destruction of hierarchy altogether. So if patriarchy is a ladder, white feminism identifies up instead of down.

And white feminism is just forever abandoning folks. It helps white women kind of sneak in the door. That's interesting because that's another way of putting it. I would just say if feminism doesn't include all women, it's not feminism. There really is no such thing as white feminism. So what is the kind of quote feminism, so examples, Betty Friedan in the 60s insisting that feminism at first move on without lesbians or like right now, one of the examples that I would think of is the turf to insisting that feminism shut

the door on trans women. So it seems like it's mostly related to when white women run things, but what is that? If it's not feminism, it seems to be there's a taste of that that is tricking people into thinking it's feminism. What is it? Well, I think we're born into some kind of hierarchy. And in order to move up in the hierarchy,

we may think we have to imitate a hierarchical mind. So if you're identifying up only, then it may be much whiter up there than it should be. But it's still to me not feminism, because if just in the dictionary, feminism includes all women or it's not feminism. So we have a lot of theories, but why, Gloria, do you believe that so many of us white women are still voting with the patriarchy?

are still voting with the patriarchy? Well, for one thing, a large proportion of white women are dependent on the identity and incomes of white men. So they may be voting the interests of their husbands. They may not have information to the contrary. So in some ways it's amazing that the majority of white women are not voting in the way that they're supposed to in the ever increasing majority. Because it is kind of crucial where your income is coming from and who your neighbors are and what you know. And it's the job of a movement to make another supportive force in the world so that there's

more choice. It's so interesting to me because it just occurred to me that, you know, we're talking about fake laughing at men and fake orgasm. Is it possible that we fake laugh at offensive things for the same reason we fake orgasm, for the same reason we vote with men because we believe that we somehow have a stake in their happiness. That if they're content, we're treated better. Whether it's through the grocery store or the bedroom or the polls, that on some level we believe that pleasing them will make our life easier.

Keep us safe. Safety. Well, it's not just belief if you're entirely dependent on a man's income. But women do in those situations also rebel. I remember meeting a woman after one election who told me she locked her husband in the bathroom for the entire election day because she realized that his vote negated her vote. So she locked him in the bathroom so he couldn't vote. It takes all approaches, doesn't it? Oh my gosh. But it's so true what you're saying. It's like a fake vote almost. Even Gloria just

said that we need to extend choice, expand choice for voting. Like she's applying the word choice for voting because if you believe your only security is in the fact that your husband stays in power, do you feel that you have a choice? Well, I mean, that may be a localized, individualized economic truth, but the larger truth is that unless we vote, we don't exist. You know, we don't have a voice in the governance of our county, city, nation, whatever it is. And that's the role of the movement. If it is true that I vote with you and my life is easier or better, then the role of a movement is to create

an opportunity to say, no, actually that is the thing that will make my life better and easier. And so... Right, and our schools should be doing it too. You know, our civics courses, our American history courses. Why did we fight a civil war over the vote and equal citizenship? Why did people die for it? Yeah. It is interesting. the vote and equal citizenship. Why did people die for it?

Yeah. It is interesting. I was reading the poem that Alice Walker wrote about you called She, and there's this one stanza that says, you make activism irresistible because you yourself are irresistible. And that makes me think about what you're saying that we have to create a movement that looks and feels

like what we actually want, so that there's another place to go other than these shitty consolation prizes, which are unequal structures. Because we're social animals, you know, there's a reason why solitary confinement is the worst punishment everywhere in the world. So we need each other and we need to create

a supportive place where women can vote for themselves. Yeah, because the pictures of you laughing, it makes me ache. That's what we want. We wanna be in powerful places with women who are laughing. Like that's, I don't know how else to say it, other than I feel the yearning come up when I see you doing that with your sisters.

And that's the alternative to this other thing. It's good that you say that, because it's probably true that when you say the word movement, it seems serious and difficult. And so we should include the laughter. Absolutely. So I want to ask you about a story I read about the Ask the Turtle. It's kind of a parable. And it happened to me when I was in college and taking geology, which I thought was the easiest of the science requirements. So we were on a field trip along the Connecticut River.

And while the professor was telling us about the meander curves of the Connecticut River or something, I had wandered up a little dirt road to the embankment of an asphalt road, and there was a turtle there in the soft dirt that was the embankment. And I thought, oh, look at that poor turtle. It's crawled all the way up here from the river, and you know, it's how sad.

But it was a big snapping snapping turtle so I pushed and pulled and tugged and got this turtle back down to put in the river and just as I the swam away in the river the professor came up behind me and said you know that turtle has probably spent at least a month crawling up that road in order to lay us eggs in the mud of the embankment. And I felt terrible, of course. And that became a source of a, I think, still very valid political rule, which is always ask the turtle. Don't act on behalf of other people. Ask first. It's so important because the people with the lived experience are the experts.

If you get in a group and you're deciding how to help a group of people that is not present, you are not helping those people. You are a nightmare. You're a nightmare. Well, you have a great impulse. It's just that before you act, you need to ask the people who are most impacted. Yes. So, this makes me think of screwing up in public. I have had lo so many turtle moments, Gloria.

Even though I've read everything you've written, still had some turtle moments. We all have turtle moments. Okay. A lot of us are afraid to step up and speak out because we know that it's not a matter of if, but when we're gonna fuck up and get our asses handed to us. So I myself has deservedly had my ass handed to me many times.

One of the things that makes me so heartened is when I read that you call yourself thin-skinned. And this thing that Flo Kennedy said to you blew my mind and I've been wanting to ask you about it. She once said to you after a public ass-kicking, she said that ass-kickings are to keep your ass sensitive. Hmm. kickings are to keep your ass sensitive. I just, my heart exploded when I read that sentence, but can you explain to us what you believe she meant by that? It serves a purpose. I mean, it's called communication. And when somebody tells us

that we could have done something better, it's very valuable. It's not that we failed, it's that we're learning. And she was always a wonderful teacher. She was always very clear about that. When you talk about Flo, I think of her as, because all the time we were lecturing together, there would often be one, you know, dissonant male person in the audience who would call out to us, are you lesbians? And Flo always said, are you my alternative? Which made the audience laugh and didn't pay his question the honor of answering it,

you know, right? So good. Exactly. No, Flo is a great example and teacher. I always think about my friend, Dr. Yabba-Blay, who's an unbelievable speaker, lecturer, teacher. And she always says, if I'm correcting you, it's because I believe I'm not wasting my breath with you.

Like, it's an honor to be corrected by me. So. And it's how we get better. Frequently, I think we have to ask and say, please tell me what I'm doing wrong or could do better. Because people, maybe especially female people are reluctant to say that.

Do you think that sensitivity and thin skinness is a plus in this sort of work as opposed to a negative? Well, it's a question of degree, isn't it? Because we do have to go forward into areas where we're not supposed to go, so we have to thicken up for the moment. But in general, I think it's a plus, yes, because it makes us more sensitive

to what's going on in the outside world. I'm curious, has it gotten easier? Cause I'm hoping that when I get to 60s, 70s, 80s, I'm hoping that I just give zero shits. Like... About negative feedback? Yeah, because you've been through it for so long. Does it get easier? I would say yes, but I think what I need to add is it's because there's a movement. I mean, we're not meant to be isolated individual revolutionary pioneers or something.

We of course need other human beings. So the learning process becomes a positive one to go forward in a more effective way, not a rejection. That's practical and logistical to me because whenever I get in my turtle situations, it's because I've gone rogue. I've gone rogue. And I should be unturtled.

But when you move with a group of people, any criticism that comes is to the movement because you have not moved alone. So it's less personal. It's true, but I'm worried about your turtle self because I want your turtle self to be set free. I mean, I mean, it don't, you know, don't censor your, your individual turtle self either. I also think that when you do get criticized, that is proof of progress,

because 50 years ago they were not even talking about us right I think that it was in the documentary I think that that's really interesting and as a soccer player that's something that we came to understand in a different way when people started criticizing us we had to actually learn how to take the criticism because this was new territory. Nobody ever gave a shit before to even criticize us. So it's like, hey, this is progress. Yeah.

In my life, in my Toledo high school life, girls did not do sports really. I mean, we complained bitterly even about doing gym. I'm annoyed we even called a movement. I just want to sit and laugh with y'all. When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in, we all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay. We all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay. We all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay. We all need someone who has our back to tell us we to creep in, we all need someone who

has our back to tell us we'll be okay, to remind us of our ability to believe. Because their belief in us transfers to self-belief and reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. With tons of free reality shows, you are totally free to watch what you love on Pluto TV. And for me, that's Dance Moms, Bar Rescue, The Challenge, and Jersey Shore. All totally free on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. So prior to 1975, we have to talk about this

because the term sexual harassment did not even exist. Sexual harassment was just life. What I want to know is what injustices are we living through now that we consider just life? Oh, that's fascinating. Well, I would say that a big one, maybe the biggest one, is we're still not recognizing that children, generally speaking, have two parents, not in all situations, but in many, men can and should be really co-parents, really an equal parent. And it's, I think it had began to happen a little more

during COVID because everybody was at home and men could see perhaps for the first time and on a day-long basis, what it takes to raise infants and little children. So we'll see, but perhaps that's been helpful. But just as women become whole people by being active outside the home, men become whole people by being active in it.

Yes. Mmm. Hmm. I love, Gloria, you said, we've begun to raise our daughters more like sons, but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters. Yes, we did. Free to Be You and Me is a collection of children's stories.

It became a book, a record, a television show, which people still see, I believe. And that was for boys as well as girls. I mean, there's a song called William Wants a Doll, you know, which is he feels he shouldn't and then his grandmother says to him, no, it's very important that you learn how to take care of it, you know. And the song William Wants a Doll became a kind of anthem. I love that it's framed as men just being wholly human, not a punishment. It's always framed as like a punishment, but actually it's an invitation to full human

experience. It is. I think that's the punishment to all of us for the idea of gender. We're working our way out of it. We're working our way out of it. That's the thing that makes all of this so tricky in talking about gender equality is that gender is not real. It makes it all tricky.

Your friendships that have sustained your work and your spirit through these many decades are deeply touching. And specifically, I really love your co-conspirator relationship with Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. And you two plan to write a book together about the wisdom of original cultures, but she passed before you could write it.

We are going to have our dear friend, Kaitlyn Curtis, on to talk about that very issue. But I wondered since writing that book together was so important to you, is there a piece of wisdom that you think that your friend would want us most to understand from the indigenous wisdom that was here long before we were? It's hard because the wisdom itself is kind of circular. Each thing depends on the equality of the next or the existence of the next. But I think just the knowledge that before European explorers set foot on this land, there were already cultures that were egalitarian.

Even Benjamin Franklin, who was not, you know, already cultures that were egalitarian. Even Benjamin Franklin, who was not, you know, your least patriarchal of all people, but anyway, he did use the Iroquois Confederacy as a model for the Constitution, because there were individual groups, linguistic groups, cooperative groups all over the country, and they came together in a longhouse meeting in which everyone spoke in turn to make decisions.

And that was the basis for our Congress and for our departure from what the Europeans had left, which were kings. You know what I mean? They did not leave democracies in which they were experienced. They really experienced them once they got here. So I wish that our courses in government

or political science began when people began on this continent. In my experience, they don't usually begin with Native American cultures, and I think it would be helpful if they did. I just wanted to say thank you for fighting so hard to keep lesbians in the women's movement. Thanks for that. What do you see now as most important? Like what are you waking up every day seeing as your first priority in terms of the continued movement? Well, I think, you know, to your first point,

I think lesbians were often in the leadership of the women's movement and more advanced in consciousness because they were less likely to have or to need to have male support for one reason or another, whether it was personal or in jobs. I mean, it's obviously not a universal truth, but kind of relatively speaking. And what we forget, what I forget, is that in the beginning of the women's movement in the early, late 60s, early 70s and so on, the women's movement was perceived as a lesbian movement. I remember being called by a friend of mine, an editor I'd worked with for years, an editor I'd worked with for years,

who, when I became publicly identified with the women's movement, called me up and said, Gloria, I didn't know you were lesbian. Ah! You heard it here first, folks. That's fascinating. No, I hope we get over this because the humans and other animals love each other. And there is what you might call same-sex sexual behavior

in birds and animal species. I mean, hello, there's a lot of sexual behavior that's not only directed at reproduction. Is that why lesbians piss off the patriarchy so much? Because we're having sex that's not based in just reproduction? Yeah, since we have the one thing that guys don't have, which is a womb, we're supposed to use that womb for patriarchal purposes. And they clearly are not.

I'm not either, but it's just slightly less obvious, I guess, I don't know. It's interesting, because the three of us are activists and we will continue to be activists through the rest of our lives. I need to know how you've been able to sustain the energy to keep doing this work decade after decade after decade. Like, can you give us some tips?

I feel like I'm looking at three of my tips. It's because we are social creatures, we need each other. And so I'm inspired by what you do and my friends, you know, whether it was Dorothy Pittman Hughes or Flo Kennedy or Robin Morgan or Amy Richards, who's my colleague now, we have each other. Is that what you think power is? I've never heard you define what is power, real power, not the hierarchy and the structures that we exist under in this moment. But what do you think is the source of true power? Well, I don't know if we can say it in that way, one source, but I think of power to not power over. So I don't want the power to dictate to other people because then I will not benefit from

their wisdom. But I'd like to have the power to do, you know, to create more equality and kindness in whatever the institution is, you know, whether it's my house, my neighborhood, the city of New York, the government of the country, getting rid of Trump, you know, whatever it is, right? Yeah. I've heard you say that the future depends entirely

on what each of us does every day because a movement is only people moving? That feels so hopeful to me because the problem sometimes seems so huge and intractable that how do we know as everyday people where we fit into it and how we are additive to it? For example, you mentioned power dynamics in individual houses. If I am a person working to establish equality in caretaking for children in my home, is that part of the movement?

Am I contributing to the movement for equality in doing that in my individual life? Yes, absolutely, because you're normalizing women as achievers outside the home and men as caregivers inside the home that is both get to do both. And what happens in our families is the determinant of our political views, whether for or against, in a very powerful way. In order to do it, we have to see it. So the revolutionary power of an egalitarian, equally nurturing home is huge. So that's why maybe you're part of the movement if you're not laughing at offensive things that people say because you're normalizing.

Yeah, whenever you respond as your authentic self and not according to whatever form of the traditional power structures around you, you're part of the movement. Yeah, because that's a challenge. It's a challenge to not react. But also it's making change. I mean what kids see in the home, if kids see their fathers as equal caregivers even when they're very little, it's a life-changing difference. I read one of your partners said, I think if you don't know how to do it, just close your eyes and imagine you're sharing your home with another woman. How do you divide up the jobs and then do that? No, it's interesting you say that because at the end of lectures with Flo or whatever,

we would often with the audience end up having this kind of discussion. Just close your eyes and pretend you're living with another woman. And also the audiences were full of wisdom. I remember kind of worrying about an older woman who were having a kind of body discussion, and I thought, oh, we're shocking her in some way.

And finally she got up and she said, well, when my husband leaves his underwear on the floor, I find it quite useful to nail it to the floor. Yes. Yes. So good. I remember you saying that your grandmother was a public feminist and a private isolationist. Because it is possible to be believing one thing on the outside but then still recreating.

What did you mean by that? My father's mother was a suffragist and she organized women because even after women first had the vote, they were kept from voting because gangs of men and boys hung around the voting place and sexually harassed them and, you know, chased them and so on. Sounds familiar. So she organized women to go and vote in groups, for instance. And she started the first vocational high school

in Toledo. She was enormously active. She did cook dinner, I believe, every night. And she had four sons. But she was doing the most that she could do, I think. Because she was was of course, still economically dependent on my grandfather. I want to end this podcast in a way that

I hope to do you honor. I became who I am as a woman, a lesbian and an athlete because of you and your sisters and all of the work. who I am as a woman, a lesbian, and an athlete because of you and your sisters and all of the work you've done. Oh, that's so moving because I feel like you're so much beyond. We stand on Gloria Steinem's shoulders. I mean, I never got beyond tap dancing

in the athletics department. So good, but your voice, No team sports. Me too, me too. Your voice giving women a platform gave the 1972 Title IX law traction that gave me a chance. And I just want to thank you for mothering and sistering me and millions of others into giving birth to ourselves.

You have changed the world. You have changed my life and you have changed the world. Gloria, we love you. We love you too. Well, no one, no one could ask for a better reward than what you just said. Nobody on earth. Thank you.

Thank you, Gloria. Oh my gosh. We did it everybody. Okay y'all, we can do hard things. We'll see you back here next time this week. Go give birth to your damn self. Bye. Okay.

Thank you, Gloria. Thank you for your time. No, it was fun. Thank you so much. It's a gift. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

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