I Know This to Be True: Gloria Steinem

By Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday

The I Know This to Be True series is a collection of extraordinary figures from diverse backgrounds answering the same questions, as well as sharing their compelling stories, guiding ideals, and insightful wisdom.

In this remarkable interview, feminist icon and social justice activist Gloria Steinem shares stories from her more than fifty years working as a tireless advocate and award-winning journalist.

Steinem looks back on the formative lessons of her life, including how her unconventional childhood shaped her worldview, why listening and empathy are the guiding principles in her work, and why laughter is the key to freedom.

• Gloria Steinem has devoted her life to challenging discrimination against women
• Steinem's words are a beacon for a new generation of social activists and a call to follow your convictions with courage and grace
• This landmark book series brims with messages of leadership, courage, compassion, and hope

Inspired by Nelson Mandela's legacy and created in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, I Know This to Be True is a global series of books created to spark a new generation of leaders.

This series offers encouragement and guidance to graduates, future leaders, and anyone hoping to make a positive impact on the world.

• Royalties from sales of the series support the free distribution of material from the series to the world's developing economy countries
• Great for those who loved Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela, and My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781797203409

Geoff Blackwell

Ruth Hobday and Geoff Blackwell are a creative team based in New Zealand.

Book preview

Introduction

A significant portion of Gloria Steinem’s life has been spent travelling. As a young child she criss-crossed America with her parents and sister living in a car and trailer. There was no plan or school, just the familiarity of the road. Survival came from money her father made selling antiques along the way.

Through this formative experience, Steinem’s identity was irrevocably shaped. ‘Taking to the road – by which I mean letting the road take you – changed who I thought I was,’ she writes in her book My Life on the Road. ‘The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of denial and into reality, out of theory and into practice, out of caution and into action, out of statistics and into stories – in short, out of our heads and into our hearts.’¹

It also led her young heart to a belief that has stayed with her throughout her life; the conviction that all people are equal irrespective of social standing.

‘Families are not about form but content. Humans are not ranked; we are linked.’²

In her early twenties she travelled to India, where she stayed for two years on a fellowship. There she observed Gandhian activism first-hand, discovering the traditional practice of communal talking circles where every person is equal and belongs. Where those involved learn to listen and gain an understanding of – and respect for – the views of others so that they might open their minds and hearts to connect with each other.

It proved to be a profound moment. Steinem would go on to use the technique again and again throughout her life.

Simultaneously, she was beginning to build a career as a journalist. The early seeds of this path took root upon returning to the US; she wrote pieces as a freelancer for major players including Esquire, Show, and Cosmopolitan magazines. In 1963 she went undercover to write an exposé on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Clubs (A Bunny’s Tale). It garnered attention for revealing the objectification and harassment Playboy’s female employees were subjected to on a daily basis. When, a few years later, her New York magazine article After Black Power, Women’s Liberation was published, it established her as one of America’s most prominent feminist voices.

As her career developed, the women’s movement gained momentum. In 1972 she co-founded Ms. Magazine with child-welfare advocate Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Filling a gap that had existed for too long, Ms. was a new type of women’s magazine both