Social activist, humanist and writer Gloria Steinem shared her rich experiences from five decades as a leader of the women’s movement and the importance of standing up for one another at William Blair’s “Inspiring Women” event in Chicago on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Now in its 17th year, the forum attracts female investors, political leaders, entrepreneurs and philanthropists who come together to inspire change through discussions on the world’s most important issues. Steinem drew a capacity audience of over 300 attendees who were captivated by the feminist journalist who believes the fight for women’s equality continues.
In a conversation moderated by CNN senior political analyst Kirsten Powers, Steinem shared stories and lessons from the founding new York And MS. magazines in the 1960s and 1970s to her co-founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus and her activism today. In 2013, President Obama awarded Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work in the women’s liberation movement.
Connect with and support others
Known for encouraging women to connect and support each other to create change, Steinem inspired the crowd to stand up for each other and never give up hope for equality.
“The more friends you have that you can talk to about that hope, the more real it becomes, the more supported you’ll feel,” Steinem said at the gathering, only the second in-person event she’s spoken at since COVID. “Hope is a form of planning. So if you have that hope, no matter what it is, it’s much more likely that some of it will come to pass.”
That is the purpose of the women’s movement, she said: to form groups and create connections across our diversity.
She cited her partnership with Florynce Kennedy, a legendary black civil rights lawyer and women’s activist, as an example. In the 1970s, the two often spoke together about women’s rights and civil rights. Kennedy and Steinem fought for both movements at a time when many viewed them as separate.
“We need to see different examples of people doing different things, living in different places, belonging to different racial and ethnic groups.”
Steinem said it was one of the biggest changes she’s experienced in her life. As a child growing up in Toledo, Ohio, she faced a “much more racially divided” world. “The idea that the amount of melanin in our skin determines our lives is as crazy as our gender completely determines our lives.”
Listen more
Today, she sees a movement toward more individualism, where people accept the uniqueness of the individual, their individual interests, and listening and speaking equally.
“It’s like instant democracy,” she said. “We should obviously listen and not talk, and I guess the boys should talk and not listen. And of course you can’t learn anything if you don’t listen.”
Steinem believes that listening and other behaviors often associated with women, such as caregiving, benefit everyone.
In many ways, COVID forced the issue. Men were at home taking care of the kids, becoming more caring or “more complete people,” as Steinem describes it, just as women have become more complete over the years by being more assertive and active outside the home.
She says it’s great to live to be 87 because you’re beyond the question of roles. “You are where you are. I’m also beyond the statistical age expectancy. So I’ve already got that behind me. My goal is to live to 100.”
It was harder to overcome the expectations of the early and central years of life when one should live a certain way, she added. In her generation, women were expected to marry and have children; few aspired to a career outside the home.
“In many ways, old age frees you from that,” Steinem said. “The goal is to live in the present and live as fully, ethically and communally as possible, with humor and as much joy as possible.”
