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Untitled
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In Excelsis Deo
Gloria Steinem shows us what 65 should look like
by Arthur Greenwald
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 You can't have an opinion of Gloria Steinem without picking a fight. Her critics and admirers are quick to attack or defend her -- fitting for a public figure so willing and able to tell the world what she thinks.
This interview wasn't my first encounter with Steinem. A few years ago, she and I traveled through North Carolina for a television story about a crafts co-operative founded by women. Not a convenient location, so the absence of celebrity demands was striking.
Particularly revealing was her response to the dozens of women who approached her. Some wanted autographs, but most wanted a moment to share a personal story. Gloria was not merely gracious. She actively listened and asked questions, frequently suggesting people and resources to contact. Later, she re-told several of the stories to me and the crew. This made me curious about the origins of Steinem's feminism, which seems a mixture of effortless outrage and loving concern.
As a child, Gloria and her family travelled constantly with her father's antique business. Steinem was home-schooled by her mother until the age of ten, when her parents split up. Gloria and her mother settled in Toledo, where her mother's bouts of depression worsened to the point that young Gloria was forced to run the household through most of her high school years.
With help and encouragement from her older sister, Gloria entered Smith College, where she flourished socially and intellectually. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and won a fellowship to study for two years in India, where she honed her writing skills. Returning to the States, Steinem was frustrated to discover no jobs for women journalists, so she gradually established herself as a freelance writer.
By 1968 she was a contributing editor and political columnist for New York Magazine, where increasingly she wrote about the growing women's movement. In 1972 Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes founded Ms. Magazine. Twenty-five years later she's launching it again -- and with the same passion and compassion that's driven her throughout her career.
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Meet Gloria Steinem, on video.
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Gloria Steinem
;)
