1 According to
a Pew poll from this
year, 79 percent
of American adults
believe it is ‘‘very
important for women
to have equal
rights with men.’’
Also according
to Pew, 78 percent
of Americans
polled support
the Equal Rights
Amendment’s
being added to
the Constitution.2 ‘‘A Letter on
Justice and
Open Debate,’’
published by
Harper’s Magazine
in July and signed
by, among others,
Margaret Atwood,
Salman Rushdie,
Malcolm Gladwell
and J. K. Rowling.3 President Trump’s
staff did not
respond to queries
about his memories
of this meeting.4 Most famously,
Dorothy Pitman
Hughes and
Florynce Kennedy.5 This is a reference
to the Anti-Slavery
Convention of
American Women,
held in New York
City in 1837.6 Steinem and
the lawyer David
Bale married in- It was her
first and, to date,
only marriage.
7 Bale died of brain
lymphoma in 2003.15against the person who said it, and that
makes no sense to me because that ends
the conversation. If you care about having
the conversation, surely you want to try
in a humane way to convince the other
person, not do away with them.
Did you follow all the hubbub around
that letter? I was asked to sign the letter,
and I signed it. I believed in the letter, so
I thought, Fine. I didn’t read any of the
response because I knew that it was going
to be mixed. But if someone has a prob-
lem with it, then start another letter. There
should be lots of letters. The most pain-
ful criticism or attacks come from people
who share your values, not people who
don’t share your values. If Trump spoke
well of me, I would shoot myself.
Have you ever met the president? It’s
interesting you ask that. I did, a very
long time ago. I was raising money for
something, as usual, and I went to see
him. He was sitting on the other side of
the desk, and he praised me to the skies
in a way that made me know he didn’t
have a clue who I was. Then he gave me
a very small check.^3
What’s the key to getting rich people
to give money to your cause? Explain
to them that it’s way more satisfying to
see money making change for the better
than it is to see numbers adding up in a
bank. Why would anyone want to die with
money? Let’s spend it all for good, creative
things before we die. I’ve seen more dam-
age done by inheritance than by no inher-
itance. I mean, it’s nice to be left money
for a college education, but after that I’m
not sure inheritance is helpful because of
all that comes with it. People worry, ‘‘Oh,
my friends only like me for my money.’’
Or, ‘‘I have to consciously try to live an
ordinary life.’’ Money brings a whole set
of problems that isolate us.
Are there criticisms you’ve gotten that
you felt were valid and then learned
from? There is the obvious fact that I am
a white person and the disproportionate
majority of feminists are women of color.
So I do my best as a normal procedure
not to show up unless I am speaking as
a partner with women of color.^4 It’s still
present in the media: They tend to see the
women’s movement as white. We are still
referring to Seneca Falls as if it were the
fi rst political meeting of women for polit-
ical ends when 10 years before there was
a meeting in Manhattan that was white
and Black women.^5 Th at should be calledpretty racist view of history, and we tend to
see white people, including white women,
as leaders when the opposite has been the
case. Black women have been more in the
leadership of the civil rights movement
too, than they’re given credit for. We need
to correct for that and look at reality.
What was most surprising to you about
marriage? I was surprised because some
of the response was as if I had capitulat-
ed somehow. There was disappointment
from women I didn’t know. I mean,
David^6 and I loved each other and wanted
to be together, and it turned out to be very
important that we were together because
only a year or so after we got married, he
became ill.^7 I think he needed someone
to take him out of life. His illness was a
couple of years; being with him helped
me acknowledge that it’s important to
live in the moment.
Do you still? I hope so. Because con-
sider my age. I have to keep reminding
myself that even if I live to 100, which I
have every intention of doing, it’s not
that long left. I just hope that I don’t die
saying: ‘‘But! Wait!’’Th is interview has been edited and condensed
Opening page: Source photograph by David Sandison/Eyevine, via Redux. This page, top: Wally McNamee/Corbis, via Getty Images. This page, bottom: Paul Morigi/Getty Images. Opposite page: Dan Wynn Archive and Farmani Group. for clarity from two conversations.
the beginning of the women’s movement,
not Seneca Falls. But because of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, because of who wrote his-
tory, it’s got to be Seneca Falls.
That’s similar to how for a long time in
the popular imagination second-wave
feminism was seen as basically a move-
ment of white women, despite what was
happening on the ground. It was led by
Black women! It’s ever been thus. The last
election was more led by Black women
than by white women. Ninety-eight per-
cent of Black women voted for Hillary
Clinton, and 47 percent of white women
voted for Trump. The public image of the
women’s movement as white is a prob-
lem. Just as the public image of the civil
rights movement as male is a problem
because it is just not accurate.
What accounts for those images? We live
in a racist, patriarchal society.
That would do it. We’re always having to
say: ‘‘No, wait a minute. It’s not just one
guy, or it’s not just white people. Let’s look
like the country here.’’ From the beginning
of the women’s movement, we’ve always
seen that women of color, and especially
Black women, have been the majority of
the activists and the leaders. Sometimes it’s
hard for us to see that because we have a