Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem — jour­nal­ist, author, and fem­i­nist leader whose books include A Thousand Indias, a guide­book for the Indian gov­ern­ment pub­lished in 1957, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Marilyn: Norma Jean (1988), and Revolution from Within (1992). She was one of the found­ing edi­tors of Ms. mag­a­zine in 1972 and in 2005 co-founded the Women’s Media Center. Steinem received the Humanist of the Year award at the 2012 AHA Annual Conference.

Born in Toledo in 1934, she attend­ed Waite High School. Her grand­moth­er was Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, who was chair­woman of the edu­ca­tion­al com­mit­tee of the National Woman Suffrage Association, a del­e­gate to the 1908 International Council of Women, and the first woman to be elect­ed to the Toledo Board of Education, as well as a leader in the move­ment for voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion.

The Toledo Public Library includes the Steinem Sisters Collection which is a lend­ing library of fem­i­nist pub­li­ca­tions to rec­og­nize the not­ed jour­nal­ist and social activist’s 80th birth­day. It was cre­at­ed by The Steinem Sisters Collective, a grass­roots group of Toledo-area fem­i­nists in 2014.

Always remem­ber that change starts at the bot­tom. I think we’re dis­em­pow­ered by the idea that it starts at the top, when real­ly change is like a tree. It does start at the bot­tom.

Also remem­ber that we’re com­mu­nal crea­tures; we need each oth­er. If we’re by our­selves, we do come to feel crazy and alone. So if I had one wish for the fem­i­nist move­ment world­wide, for the demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment world­wide, for the human­ist move­ment world­wide, it would be a kind of rev­o­lu­tion­ary AA, a net­work con­sist­ing of small groups that one could eas­i­ly find, small enough so that every­one can speak and every­one can lis­ten. We need these kinds of rev­o­lu­tion­ary cells. It’s the soul of the Chinese rev­o­lu­tion. It’s the soul of the Civil Rights move­ment. It’s the soul of the fem­i­nist move­ment. We need these groups of diverse peo­ple with shared pur­pose, who meet reg­u­lar­ly, sup­port each oth­er, and cre­ate anoth­er real­i­ty because right now we’re swim­ming in some­one else’s real­i­ty much of the time.

Lastly, keep in mind that you nev­er know which thing you do is going to turn out to be impor­tant. I’m sure we’ve all done very small things that had very great impact and very big things that didn’t make any dif­fer­ence. So, cre­ate the means that best reflect the ends we want. Try to make each moment authen­tic, and you’ll get to an authen­tic end.

Remarks at the 2012 AHA Conference

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