0:15

Pushkin. Hey

0:23

everyone, this is Talk Easy. I'm

0:26

Sam Fragoso. Thank

0:28

you for being here. It

0:31

is with a heavy heart that

0:33

I do this podcast today. By

0:36

now you have likely heard the news. On

0:39

Friday, September eighteenth, Justice

0:42

Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away

0:44

after years of battling pancreatic

0:47

cancer. She was eighty

0:49

seven. In nineteen

0:52

ninety three, she was just the

0:54

second woman appointed to

0:56

the Supreme Court. This court,

0:58

mind you, has been around since

1:01

seventeen eighty nine. For

1:03

the first one hundred and eighty years, justices

1:05

were almost always white, male

1:08

Protestants. Ginsburg nomination,

1:10

brought in by Bill Clinton, was

1:12

historic. She served on the

1:15

bench for twenty seven years,

1:18

but over the past decade she

1:20

ascended to this kind of icon

1:23

status. She was a pioneer

1:25

on behalf of women's rights, a

1:27

woman of peerless fortitude

1:30

even as the cancer metastasized.

1:33

After graduating at the top of her class

1:36

at Harvard Law School, she started

1:38

litigation in the nineteen seventies.

1:41

Mind you, this was a time when law

1:44

firms across this country seldom

1:47

hired women outside of secretarial

1:50

positions. In her

1:52

memoir titled My Own Words,

1:55

she wrote, how lucky I

1:57

was to be alive and a lawyer when,

2:00

for the first time in US history,

2:03

it became possible to urge successfully

2:06

before legislators and courts the

2:09

equal citizenship stature of women

2:12

and men as a fundamental constitutional

2:15

principle. Throughout her

2:17

career, she pushed boundaries and

2:19

broke barriers. In

2:21

her final days of life,

2:24

surrounded by family in

2:27

her home and Washington, d C. She

2:29

dictated a statement to her granddaughter

2:32

Clara. She said, my

2:35

most fervent wish is

2:37

that I will not be replaced until

2:39

a new president is installed.

2:43

On her death bed, she

2:45

uttered those words on

2:48

her death bed. She kept working.

2:51

On her death bed, she

2:53

urged this political system to

2:56

do the right thing in

2:58

a year where all the wrong

3:00

things seemed to keep happening.

3:03

I'll spare you the shortlist, because

3:07

you and I both know each

3:09

pang is more painful than the last.

3:12

Twenty twenty continues to remind us

3:15

there is no bottom. This

3:17

could all get worse, and so

3:20

far it has.

3:23

I'll be honest, Ah,

3:26

on a Friday night, I was

3:28

unable to see a way forward. I

3:31

was paralyzed, helpless,

3:34

hopeless, even as

3:36

I mindlessly doomed

3:38

scrolled through my timeline on Twitter

3:40

and Instagram and Facebook. I could

3:43

feel myself slowly

3:45

descending further and further

3:48

into this new dark

3:50

space, new to me anyway.

3:53

You see, my mother is a lawyer, and

3:56

since I was a young boy, I always

3:58

felt chaos could be controlled.

4:01

I believed in crisis management. I

4:04

believed people could be reasoned with. I

4:07

believe compassion would

4:09

win out in a crisis situation.

4:12

I am the foolish person believing

4:14

I can deliver a solution. Sometimes

4:17

I even do. Oftentimes

4:19

I fail. But

4:23

this Friday I

4:25

was at a loss. I'm

4:28

sure if you're listening to the show, I

4:31

am not alone in that feeling. As

4:33

I slowly drifted off into sleep,

4:36

I remember, with one eye open,

4:39

looking at this post from Gloria

4:42

Steinem. Gloria

4:45

worked tirelessly with

4:47

Justice Ginsburg on behalf

4:50

of Women's rights combating

4:52

gender discrimination. In

4:55

this post, Gloria wrote,

4:58

we each can honor Ruth

5:00

Bader Ginsburg by asking

5:02

ourselves what

5:04

would Ruth do? I

5:07

had no answer to what Ruth would

5:09

do on Friday night. I didn't

5:11

have an answer on Saturday either, But

5:14

as I awoke today, I felt

5:17

this uncanny sensation

5:21

to answer Gloria's inquiry, the

5:24

question what would Ruth do? Started

5:27

playing like a refrain in my head. The

5:30

question was no longer theoretical,

5:33

It became real. What

5:35

would Ruth do? To start?

5:39

She would do what she did in

5:41

her eighty seven years of life. She

5:43

would combat a man who's

5:45

vowed to fill a vacated

5:47

seat on the Supreme Court without

5:51

delay. She would use

5:53

her voice to express the urgency

5:55

of this moment, to

5:57

remind us what really hangs

6:00

in the balance this November. She

6:03

would fight onward again and

6:05

again and again, just

6:07

as she did about her life,

6:10

just as Glorious Steinham has

6:13

throughout her life. So

6:15

maybe the question isn't what Ruth would

6:18

do, but what you

6:20

will do? What

6:22

I will do? I don't

6:24

have all the answers to that question, but

6:27

I know we have to start day by

6:29

day, moment by moment.

6:32

And so this talk you're

6:34

about to hear with Glorious

6:37

Steynham took place

6:39

at the end of twenty nineteen. For

6:41

those of you who've heard it before

6:44

and reached out, I

6:46

know it has served as refuge in

6:48

these turbulent times. I

6:50

know it has provided light inside

6:52

this unfathomable darkness in

6:55

the show's four year history.

6:58

This is a singular talk. I

7:00

know that because strangers,

7:03

irrespective of class, race,

7:06

gender, geography, have

7:08

reached out about this talk about

7:10

Gloria. Gloria's

7:13

mission often aligned and

7:16

coincided with Justice

7:18

Ginsburg. They were friends

7:20

and contemporaries. They fought

7:22

fearlessly and vocally

7:25

on behalf of women's rights, on

7:28

behalf of gender equality,

7:30

on behalf of you and

7:33

I. At the end of Gloria's

7:35

post on Friday, she

7:37

wrote that Justice Ginsburg

7:40

left us a clear and precious

7:42

legacy. It's up to us

7:45

to keep her spirit alive. What

7:47

would Ruth do? What

7:50

will you do? I

7:53

guess we're about to find out. So,

7:57

whoever you are, wherever

8:00

you are, I hope

8:02

this talk with Gloria provides

8:04

you with as much comfort and inspiration

8:07

as it did me and

8:10

made the legacy of Justice Ginsburg

8:13

live on today,

8:15

tomorrow, and the next through

8:19

You and I both Stay

8:22

safe and be well, Gloria.

8:33

As you can see, I

8:36

at least got the books. Who knows that? Very

8:39

impressed? Every every author

8:41

is totally knocked out that anybody buys

8:43

their books or

8:46

reads them. Right? How

8:48

are you doing right now? You

8:50

know I'm doing okay because

8:54

once I actually leave

8:56

home, which of course takes

8:59

some doing. You know, we all have kind of inertia

9:01

about leaving home and get

9:03

out on the road. It's interesting because

9:05

you've talked to people and learned

9:08

things that you didn't know, so it's

9:10

interesting. I think many

9:13

things I don't know about you that i'd like to know. I

9:16

want to start, if you don't mind, at

9:18

the opening of this book. It's

9:20

called My Life on the Road, and

9:22

in it you wrote the following. This

9:25

book is dedicated to doctor John

9:27

Sharp of London, who, in nineteen

9:30

fifty seven, a decade before

9:32

physicians in England could legally

9:34

perform an abortion for any reason other

9:37

than the health of the woman, took

9:39

the considerable risk of referring

9:42

for an abortion a twenty two

9:44

year old American on her way to India,

9:48

knowing only that she had broken an engagement

9:50

at home to seek an unknown fate. He

9:53

said, you must promise me two

9:55

things. First, you

9:57

will not tell anyone my name. Second,

10:01

you will do what you want with your life.

10:04

Can we go back to you being twenty

10:06

two, afraid to get

10:09

a procedure that was outlawed

10:11

in many places. Where

10:14

are you at in that moment. You

10:18

know, I was really quite desperate.

10:20

I was also delusional because

10:22

I thought if I went riding

10:25

in Central Park or threw myself down the stairs

10:28

to somehow that this would accomplish

10:30

an abortion. I mean you, no,

10:33

I didn't, but the mythology

10:36

was very much part of our lives. Remember

10:38

that I am a product not

10:41

even of the sixties, but of the fifties. I

10:44

had left home

10:47

and right after college graduation,

10:50

I was engaged to a very nice man who

10:53

remained my friend the rest of his life.

10:56

But I knew that it was really

10:58

not the right thing for either one of us. And

11:01

also marriage was

11:03

made to seem the end of life then,

11:06

because you assumed your husband identity

11:08

and it was as if that was the only

11:10

decision you could make. So,

11:13

because I had a fellowship

11:16

in India, I left

11:19

early and worked as a waitress

11:21

in London, trying to waiting

11:23

to get my visa, and it was there

11:26

that I realized that I was pregnant, and

11:28

I didn't know what to do. I had this whole notion

11:30

that if I went to Paris, somehow,

11:33

surely the French, who were more liberal forgetting

11:36

entirely there was a Catholic country,

11:41

so just narrowly

11:43

and with a lot of desperation, and

11:46

finding in the London

11:48

equivalent of the Yellow Pages the

11:51

name of this doctor who

11:53

turned out to be a wonderful man, of

11:56

a generous, principled

11:59

man, who had

12:02

so promised that I wouldn't say his

12:04

name that I didn't say his name for years,

12:07

And when I was writing this book, I thought, but all

12:10

right, he cannot possibly be

12:12

alive now the laws have changed. It's

12:15

I must thank him.

12:18

You picked him by random? Yes, out

12:21

of the phone book, right. What do you make of

12:23

that? I

12:26

don't know what to make of that. I mean, it was

12:28

just luck or

12:30

divine providence, but

12:33

mainly it was him as a principled,

12:36

compassionate person. I bring

12:38

that passage up because

12:41

it seems to me that twenty two is a very precarious

12:44

age. Ideas are not

12:46

fully formed, ideas of self are just

12:48

coming together. A life

12:50

hasn't exactly been built. You

12:53

finished college and decide

12:55

to go to India. Are

12:57

you afraiding at all? No?

13:01

Because of the way I grew up.

13:03

I don't know if I can explain this. The

13:06

world outside of home was

13:08

safer then the world

13:10

inside home. Not because my parents

13:13

were in any way not good

13:15

people. They were, but my

13:18

mother was not able to take care

13:20

of herself, so our roles were

13:22

reversed. I was looking after her and

13:25

my father. They had separated

13:28

when I was about ten, and he was on the road

13:30

all the time, buying and selling

13:32

jewelry, and you know, he was a

13:34

total wanderer, and you went along with him.

13:37

Well, when I was a child, I did. Yeah.

13:40

So it always seemed to me

13:43

that the world outside the house

13:45

was safer than the world in the house, and

13:48

that meant that I was a

13:50

not all that brave to be an

13:52

adventurer. It felt

13:54

safer. It felt

13:57

just natural, well

13:59

natural, I don't know. I mean, I was well aware that other

14:01

people live in a different way. But

14:03

it seemed to me that as long as I

14:06

had an opportunity to have an exchange

14:09

with another human being, then I

14:11

had an equal chance of

14:13

understanding or being understood. It

14:16

seems to me that when you go to India,

14:19

some probably dormant

14:21

quality that is, generosity was

14:24

poor verbiage here, but it sprung up.

14:26

It seemed that it inspired you in many

14:28

ways. Is that accurate? Yes,

14:31

I mean, this was an India that was only

14:34

a decade or so after independence,

14:37

and it was the object

14:39

of the same kind of hope

14:41

and optimism that South Africa would

14:43

become later. Also,

14:46

it happened that my mother

14:48

and both of my grandmothers were Theosophus,

14:50

which is a philosophy that comes

14:53

from India in many ways. So as

14:56

a little girl, I'd been reading

14:58

Lotus Leaves for the Young, you know, I mean I

15:00

had a kind of sense of connection

15:03

to India, both from the

15:05

past and its own very exciting

15:08

democratic future. Were you writing

15:10

over there? I was, because

15:12

soon the thousand dollars scholarship

15:15

was out and I began

15:18

writing for Indian newspapers,

15:21

writing essays and columns

15:23

for Indian newspapers. I'm very

15:25

curious to see how those reading

15:28

now, Yes, I should look at them

15:30

and see you should, you know? I think that the

15:33

reason I was assigned was that people

15:35

had a curiosity about what

15:38

someone an outsider would see in India.

15:42

So I remember writing

15:44

one called Sorry Psychology, which

15:46

was really about the difference

15:49

that you feel as if female

15:51

human being dressed in a sari

15:53

and you do feel different. I mean,

15:55

it is kind of a mobile

15:58

dress that you can, you know, wear

16:00

in many different ways, and that subjects

16:03

you to the breezes, and you know,

16:05

it's very different from western dress. You've

16:07

talked about how planned are

16:10

in some ways they sort of are

16:13

linked to class and economics,

16:16

that to even have a plan is usually a

16:19

measure of class. Yeah. I

16:21

do think that that's something

16:23

we don't think about usually, that the ability

16:25

to plan ahead is a measure

16:27

of class, because well

16:30

to do families are perhaps planning for even

16:32

generations forward, yes, whereas

16:36

working people, poor people are just

16:38

planning for the next week. Right right,

16:40

I think you say a plan for Saturday. Yes,

16:42

it's what you've written, right. I asked that

16:45

because at twenty two to twenty four year

16:47

in India, you seem to

16:49

be smart enough to get there,

16:51

smart enough to write for an

16:53

Indian newspaper. I wonder

16:55

were you making plans? No?

16:58

I was not. I mean I was living

17:01

an adventurous life before I

17:04

did what I assumed one had

17:07

to do, which was to marry

17:09

and have children and lead one

17:12

the life of the person

17:14

you marry. I mean, that

17:16

was the message of the nineteen fifties.

17:18

But did you believe you had to do that? I

17:21

did. I just kept putting it off I'll

17:26

get around to it. Yeah, No, I just kept

17:29

putting it off. Unfortunately, I

17:32

do the same thing when washing my car. Is

17:34

right, Okay, they're they're equal, right.

17:38

I'm embarrassed for making that joke. It's

17:41

inappropriate. It's I just made

17:43

a joke about equality. The glorious dynam

17:45

in no car. It's no jokes.

17:48

Laughter is always good, no matter what. Okay,

17:50

good? Right? So

17:53

you know, I kept thinking that. But fortunately,

17:56

what we might think of as the women's movement

17:58

or feminism or consciousness or

18:00

whatever you want to call it, both in this

18:03

country and globally, sort

18:05

of rose up, and suddenly

18:08

I realized that not everyone has

18:11

to do the same thing. You know,

18:13

it's okay to choose your

18:15

own unique life.

18:18

So that is a huge, huge

18:20

gift. Did you have a

18:22

sense at that time in your twenties

18:24

that you had been almost

18:26

gifted this new

18:29

start because there weren't people

18:31

who were going to perform this operation, and that they

18:33

did radically change the trajectory

18:35

of your life. Yes, no, even

18:37

at that time, absolutely, Because

18:40

I could not have gone forward with traveling

18:43

to India pursuing the fellowship,

18:46

I don't know what would have happened to me exactly.

18:48

I was working in an espresso bar as

18:50

a waitress in order to make a

18:53

living. I suppose I

18:55

would have had to return home.

18:58

I don't know. I mean, it's kind of unimaginable,

19:01

but I was enormously relieved

19:03

and felt free.

19:06

When you return home? Did you feel free

19:09

going back to America? I

19:11

did, but I was

19:13

by then after two years in India,

19:15

also greatly influenced, of course,

19:18

by and change transformed

19:20

by what I had seen, because

19:24

you know, you've suddenly realized that most

19:26

people in the world do not live the way we

19:28

live here. And the other

19:30

thing was that when I came home and

19:33

I was staying with my sister and

19:37

my mother in Washington, I

19:39

suddenly realized what I should have realized

19:41

before, which is how segregated

19:44

we are, because I had grown accustomed

19:48

to seeing many different hues

19:50

of people in India, even though,

19:53

of course they also have a cast system

19:55

and problems of division

19:58

along color lines. But at least

20:00

every day in the street, you know, you see,

20:03

you know, many different folks.

20:05

And so when I

20:07

came home and realized

20:10

that where I was living, even

20:12

though in the summertime I had been the only

20:15

when I was in college. I'd been teaching

20:17

at a swimming pool in

20:20

Washington where all the

20:22

families a ran that neighborhood were black

20:24

and all the other lifeguards

20:27

were so I was the only white person. So

20:29

I you know, i'd had that which was

20:31

a good experience. Well, you've described that job as

20:33

the most formative job you've ever

20:35

Yeah, it's very helpful, I think, to be the only

20:38

one. And they

20:40

were very patient with me, and you

20:42

know, very funny and humorism. So well,

20:46

they just waited until I got over being

20:49

self conscious, and then they

20:51

taught me to play bid whist and coon can

20:53

and when it was raining, and you know, and

20:56

made jokes about the

20:59

kind of racist teenage boys who would

21:01

you know, go buy and their

21:03

bikes and say something terrible. So

21:06

I realized how segregated it's the

21:09

society was. But I think when I

21:11

came home from India, it was the first time I got

21:13

mad on my own behalf. How

21:15

dare they tell me who my friends are and

21:17

who my neighbors are? And I think that's

21:19

quite healthy, because otherwise

21:23

the dialogue is too often assuming

21:26

that white people have the power

21:29

to include black people and not the

21:31

other way around. So

21:34

I think it was helpful that

21:36

it wasn't as should or a do good

21:39

kind of impulse that I got mad on my

21:41

own behalf. You know, nobody can tell me who

21:43

my friends are going to be. How did your

21:45

anger manifest itself

21:47

at that time? I think,

21:50

you know, I just started to realize

21:53

that if you especially when the women's

21:55

movement got started, that if

21:57

you're starting an organization or

22:00

a group of any kind, it

22:02

has to look like the group that

22:05

you have in mind. You can't

22:07

start with all white

22:10

folks and then later on include

22:16

the other, you know, which is already a

22:18

mistake to say the other. But I

22:20

was greatly helped because once

22:22

the women's movement got started,

22:25

and I was writing for New York magazine,

22:27

so I could write about it there, but

22:30

I couldn't get articles

22:32

published about the women's movement elsewhere because

22:36

it was just not seen as interesting

22:38

or serious or I mean.

22:40

My favorite response was an editor

22:42

who said, yes, if he could publish

22:45

my article saying women were equal, but

22:47

he would have to publish an article

22:49

saying women were unequal right next to it in

22:51

order to be objective. So

22:55

I could see that it was going to be

22:57

tough sledding and since I was

23:00

getting a few invitations

23:02

to speak because of the columns

23:04

I was writing for New York Magazine. I

23:07

realized that it was important to do.

23:10

But I had never ever, ever spoken

23:12

in public in my life, and I had devoted

23:14

much of my life to not doing that. I

23:16

mean, if you devoted much

23:18

of your life to not doing it, yes, because I

23:20

mean I went to a speech teacher when

23:23

I was trying to do it, and

23:26

she said, well, you've been two things in your life,

23:28

a dancer and a writer, and both me and you don't

23:30

want to talk. So I

23:34

asked a friend of mine, a fearless

23:37

friend of mine, who was running

23:40

the first non sexist, multiracial childcare

23:42

center in New York, if

23:44

she would be interested in speaking together, and

23:47

she was. So it

23:49

was accidental but fortunate

23:51

that we ended up doing

23:54

this together, one white woman, one black woman,

23:56

going out and talking about the

23:58

burgeoning, growing women's

24:00

movement. Is there something about

24:02

that period? You know, you get that job

24:05

in New York Magazine. I think in nineteen sixty

24:07

eight, you're

24:09

writing for a bunch of publications

24:12

before that, A MISS comes around

24:14

in nineteen seventy two, Yes,

24:16

we started Miss magazine. Then, Yeah,

24:18

do you think there's something in that time that people

24:21

don't often talk about, like

24:23

gets overlooked. I

24:26

do, and it comes

24:28

out of the It

24:30

comes out of my own experience, you know,

24:33

speaking with Dorothy Pittman,

24:35

Hughes and Flow Kennedy and you know, after

24:38

Dorothy had a baby and wanted to stay home, you

24:40

know, So it comes out of my personal

24:42

experience. But then in one of the

24:45

very early issues of Miss magazine,

24:47

we published a Lewis Harris

24:50

national poll on the Women's women

24:53

of women's opinions of the whole feminist

24:55

movement and issues, and

24:57

it turned out that sixty some percent

25:00

of black women supported the women's

25:02

movement and the basic issues of equality,

25:05

and only thirty some percent of

25:07

white women. Now that

25:10

was true then, and I think it's probably

25:12

true now because look at the last presidential

25:14

election, in which some ninety

25:17

six percent of Black women voted for Hillary

25:19

Clinton and fifty one percent

25:21

of white women voted for Donald Trump.

25:24

Yet the women's movement is frequently

25:28

I mean, you see the phrase white feminism

25:30

online, which to me is a contradiction

25:32

in terms, if it's white, it's not feminism.

25:35

So the image, I

25:37

think, and to some extent It's true as

25:39

a civil rights movement too, because I think the women,

25:42

the black women in the civil rights movement have

25:44

not been given their

25:47

proper emphasis. Part

25:50

of the problem that I saw in

25:52

revisiting that is how

25:56

people like you, but especially you, were described

25:58

in the press. And I want to play a clip

26:01

here and revisit this

26:03

for a moment if you don't mind. Now,

26:06

guided by director Carl Charleston, here's

26:08

a US called profile of Glorious

26:10

dynam her childhood, her work,

26:13

and her friends. Well

26:17

would they so guest me about her? You know what kind

26:19

of what kind of girl is? Shit? Seems like

26:21

a real bitch. Oh,

26:24

she must be very aggressive and pushy.

26:26

You know, they have these whole preconceived ideas.

26:29

Girl who gets too wick? Gloria is

26:32

in life? What one has to do?

26:35

That makes me say because of the bitch part,

26:37

I mean, that really gets to me. I guess maybe it's worse

26:39

than I think. I mean, I don't hear those comments.

26:42

But what I've come to understand lately is

26:44

it's not always personal, is it? All

26:46

women come in for this kind of stuff? Because

26:49

I keep meeting women who I've

26:51

heard all my life are bitchy and

26:53

pushy and so on and so forth. I meet

26:55

them and their life, compassionate

26:58

people. It's if you don't

27:01

play your role, you know, if you dare to aspire

27:03

to something, then then you get

27:05

it automatically. But it's hard for me to remember

27:08

them and the other

27:11

people who say, well, Gloria is a

27:13

star, not a writer. A

27:15

lot of people say that, a lot of people talk about her

27:17

star instinct, that she's

27:20

always just slightly too far a hidden in the Amphon

27:22

Guard movement. There are people who just

27:24

make simple fun like al Cap,

27:28

who called it the Shirley Temple of a New lab. Al

27:31

Cap and David's both kind of too of a few people

27:33

I can accept criticism from and not

27:35

care because I I don't think they know what the hell

27:37

they're talking about. It's great

27:40

that you have that clip, that's amazing. What

27:42

do you make of that? Well?

27:45

I think it's

27:48

true that if you don't play your role,

27:51

you know, I mean, anger, for instance, in women

27:54

and in black men, is viewed as

27:56

more threatening than anger,

27:59

which is fairly routine in white men's.

28:02

You can see that reaction

28:05

to the same injustice

28:07

or whatever it is, this making us angry

28:10

is judged differently in who

28:12

it comes from. And you

28:14

know, it finally dawned on me

28:17

that when I'm called a bitch.

28:19

It took me a few years to realize

28:21

that when I was called a bitch, I should just say

28:23

thank you. There's

28:28

something else at play, which is the

28:30

second criticism, which

28:32

is that Glorias Dynham is less

28:35

of a writer and more of a star. This

28:37

tends to happen to

28:39

anyone who becomes a

28:42

figure in a movement. It happened

28:44

to Deray McKesson in the Black

28:46

Lives Matter movement. It's happened

28:48

to know him Chomsky just as a public intellectual.

28:52

I'm interested just Gloria. In the

28:54

seventies and eighties, when this is all happening,

28:57

did you feel the responsibility

29:00

or the weight of being some

29:03

sort of figure in this movement? Did

29:07

that way at all? Only

29:10

in the sense that I

29:13

should do my best not to appear by myself,

29:15

you know, that I should always be

29:17

part of a group, which I think

29:20

does make sense. Then

29:22

also there was the other part of me that

29:24

felt that I should be writing. You know,

29:27

that I should be at home because I

29:29

identify as a writer. So

29:33

to the extent that I was not doing that, I

29:35

felt that I was perhaps

29:38

not doing the right thing, but in

29:40

the moment, you

29:43

make the best choices you can. And

29:46

it was clear that it

29:48

was important, especially

29:52

in that period of time and

29:54

especially in places where there

29:57

was not access to information about

29:59

what the women's woman was. For

30:01

me and Flow Kennedy, or me and Dorothy Pitman

30:04

used to go out on the hustings and

30:06

talk. Something happens when you're

30:09

in a room physically with other people

30:11

that can't happen on the printed page.

30:13

And I don't think I ever would have learned that

30:16

if it hadn't been for the movement and being

30:18

forced out to speak. And

30:20

it's true. I mean, I've asked my friendly

30:23

neighborhood neurologist if

30:25

it's true that you don't

30:28

produce oxytocin, you know,

30:30

which is the tendon befriend hormone

30:32

that allows us to empathize

30:34

with each other, not just to learn intellectually,

30:36

which is very important, but also to

30:39

sense what the other person is feeling if

30:42

you produce that the page,

30:45

much as I love books or from

30:47

the screen. And she said, no,

30:49

you don't. So when male

30:52

or female one we're holding a baby, we're flooded

30:55

with oxytocin. When we see

30:57

somebody who has an accident, even if

30:59

we don't know them, we have an impulse to help.

31:02

Certainly, the human species

31:04

could not have survived without oxytocin.

31:07

And what I learned from going out to speak

31:10

is how different it is to be with

31:13

all five senses in a room together.

31:15

I learned to have enormous faith

31:17

in it. I see

31:20

a very interesting woman in that

31:22

clip. I see someone trying

31:25

to stay composed, a

31:27

little bit nervous and smoking.

31:30

How about that? Even

31:32

though I wasn't inhaling, I

31:36

guess I thought it was sophisticated. To you

31:39

look sophisticated. I

31:42

think you probably were sophisticated. But

31:46

I also said, someone

31:48

who is

31:50

trying to do the right thing, but

31:53

as being pulled from all

31:55

different directions. And this happened throughout

31:57

the seventies as Miss Screw and

32:00

you became more of a public

32:02

figure. I could see

32:04

in those appearances that you

32:06

made that you were trying to do the right

32:08

thing, and yet you had so many

32:11

people constantly throwing

32:13

punches, and I

32:15

have to imagine at some point you

32:18

felt some of those Yes,

32:20

no, I definitely did. I mean the most painful

32:24

experience is being misunderstood

32:27

by people who are your

32:30

friends and allies. It's one

32:32

thing to be accused by

32:34

people who disagree with you. That's

32:38

sometimes painful, but somewhat

32:40

inevitable and makes sense,

32:44

but especially

32:46

in groups of people who

32:48

have not been able to exercise

32:51

their power before there

32:53

comes to be what is

32:55

known in Australia I think as the

32:57

tall poppy syndrome of what

33:00

is known in the black community as crabs in the

33:02

basket. You know of one person one

33:05

climbs up in the other sport

33:07

that was more pres in

33:09

the earlier days of the movement. It's really not

33:11

anymore. I think we've we've

33:14

all realized there's a place for all of

33:16

us, and that's the point. But

33:19

at the time there

33:21

was a feeling of scarcity I

33:23

think of attention, and

33:25

so there was sometimes resentment

33:28

from people you loved, you know, and

33:30

so that was painful, you know. It

33:33

seemed clear in the documentary in

33:35

her own words, I think it's called on HBO,

33:38

you talk about this time when

33:40

your career is taking off and this movement

33:43

is in, you know, full swing. Your

33:46

mother is sick, she

33:48

gets increasingly sick, and your

33:50

sister is taking care of her

33:52

for a majority of this time. You

33:55

have this quote that I will say, kind

33:58

of broke my heart. You said,

34:00

I distanced myself for my mother because

34:03

I was so fearful of becoming her.

34:07

How do you feel about her and

34:09

how you were in that time? Now?

34:13

Yeah, No, I do have regrets.

34:16

I mean, we especially because we

34:19

were living on our own for such a

34:21

long period of time, so

34:24

we kind of understood each other. And

34:27

then she lived with me. She couldn't

34:29

live on her own, but she lived with my sister,

34:32

who had six children, and

34:35

she managed to have a small job and a

34:38

you know, I mean, she was feeling

34:40

better, but we didn't have

34:42

the kind of intimacy that

34:44

we had had when I was growing up. I

34:47

was traveling, she was living with my sister,

34:50

and I regret that. But

34:53

even more than that, I regret

34:55

that she couldn't live her own life

34:59

because she had been a journalist,

35:02

a pioneering, very early journalist

35:05

when there were very few women. She'd actually

35:07

been the managing editor

35:09

of a newspaper in Toledo, which is very

35:11

rare in the beginning writing

35:13

in a man's name. Yes, right, see

35:16

what great research you've done. When I'm

35:19

beginning to lose my memory. So I'm going to call you

35:21

up, call me at a time. Okay, they'll

35:23

give me my number after okay. And

35:28

most of all, I regret that she couldn't live

35:30

her own life. Secondarily,

35:33

I regret that I, because

35:37

of our closeness, wasn't there enough

35:40

before she died. And I've already

35:42

outlived her. But

35:45

the fear of becoming her. It

35:48

seems to me on paper that you

35:51

were far distance away from becoming

35:53

her. I mean you were on the road. I

35:55

mean in this time. There's two decades here

35:58

where you say that you never

36:00

spent more than eight days

36:03

consecutively at home. It

36:06

seems like you're very different from

36:09

her. Well, being

36:11

mobile doesn't mean that you're

36:14

different inside, right, you know, maybe

36:17

that's what I'm getting. Yeah, she

36:20

led a very different life in

36:23

terms of travel or autonomy,

36:27

which eluded her for you know,

36:29

most of her adult life. She really couldn't

36:31

function on her own. So that's quite different.

36:34

But internally, I

36:37

think we were way more alike.

36:40

And it's haunting to think who she

36:42

could have been. Those

36:44

are maybe the saddest words in English,

36:48

what could have been? And

36:51

I hope that even though a lot

36:53

of us, me included, and perhaps

36:55

you two are living out the unlived

36:58

lives of our parents or other

37:00

people close to us, which

37:02

is a worthy thing to do. That

37:05

we arrive at a place where each

37:07

person can live out their own

37:10

unique talents, you

37:13

know. And I used to say this to my mother,

37:15

you know, because she would say how she wanted to go

37:17

to New York and work as a journalist, and

37:20

I would say, well, and also

37:23

she fell in love with another man who was not my father,

37:25

who was working in the newspaper office. And

37:28

I would say to her, well, why didn't you,

37:30

you know, marry the other man go

37:32

to New York? Do I mean, whatever it was

37:34

that you felt you truly wanted to do.

37:37

And she would say to me, but then you never

37:39

would have been born. And

37:41

I never had the courage to say, but you

37:43

would have been born. Right

37:47

in this case, maybe

37:49

both of you are right. Well,

37:51

what he is is, you know, and we

37:54

we can move forward,

37:57

I think by being our own authentic,

37:59

individual, unique selves and helping

38:02

other people to be their

38:04

own authentic individual selves

38:06

without group judgment. And I

38:09

get huge pleasure out of that,

38:11

I have to say. I mean, I realized

38:13

that we're supposed to feel rewarded by money,

38:16

And I'm certainly in favor of everybody

38:18

having a nice place to live, in food

38:21

and dancing, you know, I'm

38:23

all for that. But when

38:26

somebody comes up to me in the street and

38:28

tells me that something

38:30

I ever said or did help them to

38:32

do what they wanted to do, that

38:34

is so much more rewarding than

38:37

any amount of money I can think of. I

38:40

wouldn't have admitted the equality and inequality

38:43

in my own life, even though

38:45

I wouldn't continually discriminated against

38:47

in journalism, journalism

38:49

which allows women to write about women

38:52

and black people to write about black people,

38:54

and keep the editorial decisions

38:57

in white male hands. I

38:59

would not have admitted my own

39:01

inequality even though I had been

39:03

refused apartments by landlords

39:05

who would not rent to women, and

39:08

refused access to

39:10

supposedly public places. I

39:13

would not admit it even though I have been

39:15

refused full participation in

39:18

politics. Now,

39:21

thanks to the spirit of equality in

39:23

the air, and to the work of many of

39:25

my more foresighted sisters, I

39:27

no longer accept society's judgment

39:30

that my group is second class. Was

39:36

falling in love something you thought about

39:38

or did in that time? Oh, Yes, absolutely,

39:41

No. I mean, you know, I

39:45

probably was a romance junkie. I

39:48

mean there's something about what does that mean for

39:50

you? Well, you know, you you

39:53

fall in love with somebody, there's this intense

39:55

period of getting to know each other and exploring

39:58

and so and I mean it's it's there's

40:01

a reason I'm told why when

40:04

you fall out of love you creave chocolate

40:06

because the epef or whatever it is

40:09

right, right, there's a word

40:11

right is

40:14

present in both cases. There

40:16

is a difference between romance and love,

40:19

and hopefully romance

40:22

leads to love, but

40:25

there is something infinitely

40:27

exciting about really

40:29

getting to know another person. Did

40:32

those partners at the time want you

40:35

to be someone that you couldn't

40:37

be? Yes

40:40

in the beginning, you know, because they're all living

40:42

in an era in which, you know, marriage

40:44

was to be

40:46

all an end all. I guess I bring that up

40:49

because a lot of the criticism of

40:51

you at the time, which

40:53

is mystifying to read from

40:55

my perspective, especially in twenty nineteen,

40:58

but it's that how could you

41:00

write about women and feminism

41:02

when you do not have children and you are not married.

41:05

That was a constant attack. It's

41:08

still even angering now although it's

41:11

much less amplified. Did

41:13

that matter to you now?

41:15

It really didn't, because it always seemed

41:17

to me that feminism meant that you

41:19

got to live the way that was right for you.

41:22

And I would

41:26

devoutly argue, you know that

41:28

women who are mothers are probably the least

41:32

equally treated. I mean men are. Some

41:35

men are becoming equal fathers, but a lot

41:37

are not. Actually

41:39

Economically, at a minimum,

41:42

we should be able to say,

41:44

to assess what mothers

41:47

are women who work in the home, do at

41:50

replacement level and make that tax

41:52

deductible. Why not? You

41:54

know we could do that with a

41:57

simple legislation. And

41:59

yet that work, which is so

42:01

indispensable, is not counted

42:03

as work. So we need to advocate

42:07

for each other. But I never

42:09

was made to feel that I had to live in

42:11

a way I was not. On the contrary, the

42:13

movement let me understand that it was

42:16

okay to live your own

42:18

life, in your own individual choices.

42:21

When you turned fifty there seemed to

42:23

be a dramatic turning point in your life

42:25

in nineteen eighty seven misclosed

42:28

at least temporarily, and

42:32

the movement, I wouldn't say slow down,

42:34

but I think it changed speeds, Well

42:37

I didn't. It became a foundation and

42:39

then eventually became published by

42:41

the I mean it was continuously published.

42:43

But yeah, but personally for you,

42:46

you've described that time as being

42:48

particularly difficult, you felt

42:50

some depression. It's

42:53

hard to sell that was that was

42:55

actually less connected

42:57

to the magazine than that. I

43:00

was really, really really tired,

43:04

naturally seriously tired, and

43:06

I did something I've never

43:09

before or since done in my life,

43:11

which is to fall in love with a man with

43:14

whom I had nothing in common. Really,

43:16

yeah, right, how did you do that? I

43:19

was tired and he was a great dancer,

43:22

what can I say? And he

43:25

those two things seemed contradictory. He

43:27

was tired, but we danced, tired

43:30

of you know, work and not having any

43:32

other life. And he

43:35

was funny. He was a great dancer. He

43:38

also was successful

43:41

in his field. So all

43:43

I had to do was show up for dinner. I

43:45

never had to worry about, you know. I mean,

43:47

he took care of absolutely everything. And

43:52

it was fun. It was educational, but

43:54

it was I mean, all

43:56

all of the other not that they're

43:59

so many, but the other men I

44:01

loved are still my friends, absolutely

44:04

all of them. But we were just too different.

44:07

We you know, we're not enemies, but

44:09

we were just too different. How

44:11

did that affect you transitioning into

44:13

your fifties. I think

44:16

I got depressed by it because I was so

44:18

tired and aware,

44:21

you know, that I had done something

44:23

that wasn't true to who

44:26

I was myself. So

44:29

it did, you know. I

44:31

must say that up to then, I thought

44:33

that therapy was totally

44:36

wonderful for other people, but maybe I would

44:38

rather do something practical. I learned to roller

44:40

skate. You know I can't roller

44:42

skate. I mean, I had no I had a

44:44

Midwestern attitude towards therapy,

44:47

I think, but at

44:49

that point I found

44:51

are Also the other thing was that I

44:53

had breast cancer for the first time, and that was

44:55

shocking. So between those two

44:58

things, I did kind of pause

45:00

and say, you

45:02

know, I want to wait

45:05

and think and figure out what

45:07

I'm doing with my life. I did well.

45:09

Something you did do in the aftermath

45:11

of that is write a book called Revolutions from

45:13

Within. You did an interview in nineteen

45:16

ninety two on MPR in

45:19

which you said women become ourselves

45:21

again after fifty I

45:23

believe you were quoting Carolyn Helber

45:26

right from her book Writing a Woman's

45:28

Life. Do you believe that

45:31

do you feel like you became yourself

45:34

after fifty? Well, I'm not

45:36

trying to overgeneralize, but I

45:38

do think that there's a way in

45:41

which maybe this is

45:43

true somewhat for men to but I think especially

45:46

for girls and women, we

45:48

are our own selves, climbing trees

45:50

and saying I know what I want, I know what I think,

45:52

and up until we're about ten

45:54

or eleven, then the so called

45:56

feminine role, the gender role comes down

45:59

upon us and it doesn't

46:02

let up until we're about fifty. So

46:04

I do think there are ways in which the

46:07

people we are after

46:09

we're fifty sixty seventy more

46:12

resemble the little girl who was climbing

46:14

trees in the first place, because

46:18

the central years of life are

46:21

more influenced whether you are going

46:23

along with the gender role or fighting

46:25

the gender role, it's enmeshed with the gender

46:27

role. And that's

46:29

because those are the child bearing years

46:32

and child rearing years in which

46:34

there is more social

46:37

imperative to act in a certain way.

46:40

You know, do you do this thing and you're

46:42

writing, and you even do it a little bit here where

46:44

you are very good at talking

46:47

about women, other

46:49

women, specifically friends.

46:52

Do you think I'm not talking about myself enough? I

46:55

think you admitted to it. In fact, the first

46:57

draft of Revolutions

47:00

from Within you submitted or you sent

47:02

it to a friend and your friend said, you're not in here, right.

47:05

No, that's true. I was writing the book

47:07

that I wanted to read, but

47:10

I wasn't putting myself in, which

47:12

you have to because you have to,

47:13

you have to be you have to give

47:16

the reader a person. Well, so

47:18

I'm going to give you something here because in

47:20

one of my favorite chapters of this book, Outrageous

47:23

Acts and Everyday Rebellions, there's

47:25

a chapter called in Praise of Women's

47:27

Bodies. The year is nineteen

47:30

eighty one, and your writing about your

47:32

time at an old fashioned spa in the company

47:34

of ninety or so women. You then

47:36

go on to praise some of these

47:38

women, and I'd like to read a couple

47:40

descriptions here, if you don't mind. You

47:43

described one woman as a small,

47:45

sturdy, young massus with strong hands,

47:48

who dreams of buying a portable massage

47:50

table so that she can start a business

47:52

of her own. There are two women

47:54

friends who speak only Spanish and

47:56

whose arrival causes uncertainty among

47:59

walker mates, who speak no Spanish

48:01

at all. From them, we soon

48:03

learn that the language of bodies and gestures

48:05

is universal. The

48:08

third woman a tough, witty

48:10

criminal lawyer who wants to figure out how

48:12

to use her legal talents to advance

48:14

other women and nudity. She

48:16

relaxes enough to gift us with an epigram.

48:19

Most men want their wives to have a

48:22

job at and

48:24

there was there were one or more.

48:26

There's many more women, yeah, who had

48:29

this stretch marks and the scars of cesarean

48:32

birth, yes, And I was so

48:35

struck by that because the

48:37

bravery of the

48:40

scars that come from

48:42

giving life as opposed to taking

48:44

life, and more right, how

48:46

would you describe yourself physically

48:50

all of it? Because you're capturing a bunch of different

48:53

qualities in those passages. And

48:55

that's the one thing I kind of wanted

48:58

in here is where Gloria

49:00

fit into the equation. Well,

49:03

I was I'd never been with

49:05

a group of nude women before, and

49:08

of course I was too. So

49:11

you feel first exposed

49:14

and then communal, you know, if you feel

49:17

literally your commonality. I

49:20

think I

49:22

love the feeling of being

49:25

useful, you know, of it's

49:28

the fun of organizing, Well, we have

49:30

this problem. If we did this and that,

49:33

maybe that would help. It's just infinitely

49:35

interesting. I get hooked

49:37

on it. And I

49:40

also love my idea of heaven

49:42

as an editorial meeting, because

49:46

you're all sitting there, especially

49:49

for magazines, you're kind

49:52

of thinking of the current events

49:54

and what and if

49:57

it works. You come up with something

49:59

collectively that you could not have come up

50:01

with individually, and it's

50:03

a real high. It's absolutely

50:06

my idea of heaven. You described

50:09

still some other people in describing you.

50:11

Yeah, well that's it. I mean, what can I

50:13

says? Ask me a question

50:16

that will deliver what you have

50:18

in mind? No, I think it's

50:20

your journalistic roots. I understand

50:22

I'm the same way I started in journalism.

50:25

Well, I'm quite willing to ask answer

50:27

anything you ask me. Well, that's very kind to you. Okay,

50:30

let's do it. You're married for the

50:32

first time sixty six in

50:34

two thousand. How

50:37

did that feel? Shocking?

50:40

I mean, I couldn't have done anything more dangerous

50:42

than jump out of a plane by

50:45

myself without a parish because

50:47

we hardly knew each other, but we

50:49

had fallen in love and he

50:53

had been born in South Africa's and

50:55

he had all kinds of difficulty

50:57

with his legal status.

51:00

Here we were. We

51:03

had consulted with lawyers

51:05

about how to help him with his legal

51:07

status. It would have been possible

51:09

to get an individual congressional bill

51:12

passed through Congress, but it sounded quite

51:14

unlikely, and they kept saying

51:16

to us, the only real

51:18

way that you're certain of is

51:21

if you marry, because then it is the

51:23

right of you as a citizen to marry,

51:26

and you know he will have legal

51:28

status and so on. And

51:31

I thought, well, you know, we have spent thirty

51:34

forty years making the marriage laws equal.

51:36

I wouldn't anymore lose my name, my

51:39

credit rating, my legal domicile.

51:41

And we

51:43

were also about to go to

51:45

the Cherokee National Reunion in

51:48

Oklahoma because my

51:50

friend Wilma Mankiller I had often gone

51:52

there and we were going there together. So

51:55

I called up Wilma and I

51:57

said, you know, I explained the situation

51:59

and I said, you know, I'm thinking of getting

52:02

married. What do you think. She said, well,

52:04

I'll call you in the morning. She

52:06

went out and sat under the star

52:09

and called me in the

52:11

morning. I said, yes, I think you know it's so

52:13

we were married in a Cherokee ceremony.

52:15

You know, who could resist that walking

52:18

around the fire and you

52:21

know, I say dangerous because we didn't really know

52:23

each other that well, but we

52:25

were in love. We would have been together anyway,

52:28

and it just seemed to make sense. And actually

52:31

it did, in the end make a profound

52:34

sense, because he

52:37

lived one hundred percent in the present,

52:41

absolutely in the present. You

52:44

know, he was always rescuing animals

52:46

on the roadside, and so I mean, he was just

52:49

totally in the present, and I

52:52

live in the future, when, of course you

52:54

can't live totally in the future

52:57

with all five senses. So I

52:59

learned from him, or

53:01

at least I learned more

53:04

from him to live in the present. And

53:07

he, as it turned out, because

53:10

he became very ill after a couple of

53:12

years, he needed

53:14

someone to accompany him

53:16

on his journey out of life. So

53:20

it was right in both

53:23

ways, even though you

53:25

know, we could not have known that at the time. Wouldn't

53:28

that experience teach

53:30

you about mortality?

53:35

I mean, of course, you know, we're

53:38

all conscious of mortality and

53:40

denying mortality, our own mortality

53:42

every every minute. But

53:46

what I remember most about it is that

53:48

will my man killer, my friend, the chief of the Cherokee

53:51

Nation, had almost died once herself

53:54

in a very serious car accident,

53:56

very serious, and she

53:59

came to visit David in the hospital,

54:01

and she told me that when

54:04

she had this near death experience, she

54:08

imagined she felt that

54:10

she was flying through

54:13

faster than any human being good bye, that

54:15

she was full

54:17

of warmth and kind

54:20

of worldview and just feeling

54:24

okay, now I know what life

54:26

is about, and that she wanted

54:28

to continue, but she

54:30

had two little girls, so she realized she should

54:33

turn back, and she turned back. And

54:36

her description, which I'm not doing

54:38

justice too, was longer and

54:40

more fervent and unforgettable.

54:43

Of that near death experience was

54:46

something I'll never forget. And I so

54:48

hope that David had that experience,

54:51

and I so hope that I and you have

54:54

that experience. That's

54:56

very kind to offer that to me, I

54:59

can't offer me, but it or

55:02

suggested, yeah, because you

55:05

know, we're such a death denying

55:08

culture, and death

55:10

of course, I'm not denying. I'm just

55:12

afraid. You

55:15

know, other cultures are not as

55:17

death denying as we are. So

55:20

I think we don't think about it,

55:22

and we sometimes even

55:25

physicians who should know better

55:27

view death as a defeat instead

55:30

of a normal, natural part of

55:32

life that makes life more precious.

55:35

Do you fear it? Well,

55:38

I fear I just don't want to be dying

55:41

lying there saying. But

55:46

but

55:48

other than that, I don't think

55:50

I fear it. I mean, I just spend a weekend with

55:53

a couple of women friends

55:56

talking about what we individually

55:59

want at the end of life because

56:02

we thought it was something

56:04

you know, that people don't talk about

56:07

and we should talk about. It was fascinating.

56:09

I get the sense that there's

56:12

still more for you to do. Oh

56:15

yes, no, there's no shortage. There's no shortage.

56:17

And I want to bring this a little bit full circle if

56:19

we can. You know, going

56:21

into twenty twenty, we have done

56:23

a wonderful job. We should both be

56:26

proud of ourselves for not mentioning a

56:29

person who runs this country. And I'm not going to still,

56:31

but it's going to be a long, arduous

56:35

year. Something that is happening

56:37

right now is something you've been part of since

56:40

nineteen seventy, which is the Equal

56:42

Rights Amendment. In nineteen

56:45

seventy, you gave a testimony

56:48

before the Senate Judiciary Committee

56:50

on the RA, and I

56:52

have a quote here from it, if you don't mind, you

56:55

said, during twelve years

56:57

of working for a living, I've experienced

56:59

much of the legal and social discrimination

57:02

reserved for women in this country. I've

57:04

been refused service in public restaurants,

57:07

ordered out of public gathering places, and turned

57:09

away from apartment rentals. Most

57:11

important to me, I have been denied a society

57:14

in which women are encouraged or

57:16

even allowed to think of themselves

57:18

as first class citizens and responsible

57:21

human beings. That was

57:24

in nineteen seventy. It passed Congress

57:26

but failed to gain ratification

57:29

in the US. It's looking like because

57:31

of Virginia, which flipped

57:33

to a dumb majority, that there

57:35

will be thirty eight states that

57:38

have ratified this, and it

57:40

seems possible going into twenty twenty.

57:43

You have been part of this movement, this

57:45

amendment for fifty

57:48

years. Do you

57:50

think it's still deeply important right now?

57:53

Yes? You know the problem with the Equal Rights Amendment.

57:56

It always had two problems. One people

57:58

thought we already had it, and the

58:01

other was that people

58:03

didn't realize how much it could transform.

58:07

So that

58:09

has been its problem and continues

58:12

to be its problem. But I do think

58:14

now it might be possible. The remaining

58:17

barrier is that it was the only

58:20

constitutional amendment that was given

58:22

a deadline, and

58:25

now the House will have to vote,

58:27

and the House Judiciary Committee has

58:29

voted to remove the deadline

58:32

the limitation, so it's

58:34

possible that it will be It is

58:37

crucial, after all, the

58:39

Constitution was patterned after

58:41

the Iroquois Confederacy, which

58:43

included women and did

58:45

not have slavery. I mean, we could, at least,

58:47

after all these years, finally be

58:50

true to what we were imitating in terms

58:52

of a real democracy. It wouldn't

58:55

impact reproductive

58:57

freedom necessarily, which

59:00

is I mean, I think we still

59:02

have to demonstrate

59:04

that bodily integrity

59:07

male and female, that our autonomy

59:10

and independence begins with

59:13

authority over our own physical selves.

59:16

But it would be very

59:18

very important and very helpful in

59:20

all kinds of ways. Do

59:22

you think it'll happen. I don't

59:25

know, because I don't know whether the

59:27

deadline will be removed. I'll

59:29

just explain some of the past problems

59:31

and you'll understand why your

59:35

trepidation. Yeah, well, for a long

59:37

time we didn't understand

59:39

why it would get up to the last two

59:42

votes, say in Illinois, and

59:44

different people each time would vote against

59:47

it, and that what happened state by state.

59:49

It took us a long time to understand

59:51

that the insurance industry, and

59:55

at that point the average, the

59:57

most frequent occupation of a state

59:59

legislator was insurance agent. Because

1:00:02

the insurance industry was the last,

1:00:04

big, big, big industry that was not regulated

1:00:07

federally, was regularly state by

1:00:09

state. Right, they were

1:00:12

the real opposition to the Equal

1:00:14

Rights Amendment because they

1:00:16

would have to stop sex segregating

1:00:19

their actuarial tables. What

1:00:22

that means is that even now,

1:00:24

frequently a woman who doesn't

1:00:26

smoke pays a higher

1:00:28

premium than a man who does smoke because

1:00:30

she might live longer. Right,

1:00:32

Okay, so they had to stop race

1:00:35

segregating, but they haven't uniformly

1:00:38

stopped sex segregating, and

1:00:40

it took us a while to realize that that was the

1:00:43

opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

1:00:45

I didn't want to go to into

1:00:48

politics for a lot of reasons,

1:00:50

but I feel I need to bring this up to you

1:00:52

before we leave. The twenty sixteen

1:00:54

election seems to

1:00:56

me to be a very crucial

1:00:59

moment in American history, and that feels like an understatement.

1:01:02

And there's a quote you have that

1:01:04

you've been saying, I think thirty

1:01:06

years, and it's on the nature of hope.

1:01:09

And you say, when people ask me why I

1:01:11

still have hope and energy after

1:01:14

all these years, I always say, because

1:01:16

I travel. You seem

1:01:19

to have a lot of hope in the basic

1:01:21

decency of people across this country

1:01:24

and outside of this country.

1:01:27

Did twenty sixteen at

1:01:30

all shake your

1:01:32

sense of hope? Well,

1:01:35

I don't think we can deny each other hope because

1:01:37

it is a form of planning, you know. So we

1:01:39

which is another good quote, Yeah, we can't, you

1:01:41

know. But it is important

1:01:44

to remember that Trump, who I've

1:01:46

never once called president, lost

1:01:48

by six million votes, three

1:01:51

for Hillary Clinton and three for other candidates.

1:01:54

He only won because of the electoral

1:01:56

college, which is left

1:01:58

over from the will of slave

1:02:01

states that wanted extra

1:02:03

power even though many of their residents

1:02:07

were slaves. Yes, but all those

1:02:09

people demonstrating, I mean, you heard

1:02:11

his base. I agree

1:02:13

with you that it's an outdated format, but I'm talking

1:02:15

purely about the human spirit

1:02:18

of people. Yeah, well, I

1:02:20

think that. I mean, if

1:02:22

you look at the polls, it's some thirty forty

1:02:25

percent of the people who support him

1:02:27

in the majority who don't. We

1:02:29

should have won last time in

1:02:32

terms of one person, one vote, and

1:02:34

now people are getting rid of state

1:02:36

by state the electoral college. I

1:02:38

think it's very dangerous.

1:02:40

It's like a big wake up call there to

1:02:42

see so much that is wrong

1:02:45

with the country represented in

1:02:47

the Oval office. And

1:02:50

you know, I'm not downplaying the danger for a

1:02:52

moment, But it is

1:02:54

also true that we have the majority. And

1:02:56

it is true just in my wandering around

1:02:59

the country that I have never

1:03:01

seen before in my life, the

1:03:03

degree of activism

1:03:05

that I see now. So he

1:03:08

has made us woke big

1:03:10

time, right accidentally

1:03:12

a very dangerous, a very dangerous

1:03:14

way of getting woke. And I'm

1:03:17

not trying to predict what's going

1:03:19

to happen. I think we each have to do

1:03:21

the most we possibly can in order

1:03:24

to get our democracy

1:03:26

back obviously, or not

1:03:29

even back, move forward. I mean, we've

1:03:31

never had a perfect democracy anyway.

1:03:34

But the people who voted

1:03:36

for him the most when asked

1:03:39

why, the usual reason

1:03:41

was because he is a successful

1:03:44

businessman and therefore he'll be

1:03:46

able to run the country. Of

1:03:48

course, those of us in New York who

1:03:50

know him, no, he was absolutely

1:03:52

not a successful businessman, he had

1:03:54

gone bankrupt many times. Banks

1:03:57

would no longer loan him money. That's how he got

1:03:59

in trouble with Saudi Arabia and Russia. So

1:04:01

on. Somebody figured out that if

1:04:03

he had only invested

1:04:05

the money he inherited it at the going rate,

1:04:07

he would be richer than that. So

1:04:11

don't tell him that he's

1:04:13

an accident of history in every

1:04:15

way. But if we learn

1:04:18

from this, if we learn to get rid

1:04:20

of the electoral college, if we learn to that

1:04:23

if we don't vote, we don't exist. If

1:04:26

we learn how profoundly racist

1:04:29

and clinging to the old hierarchy

1:04:31

at least a third of the country is,

1:04:35

then will have been almost

1:04:38

I'm not sure worth the learning. I

1:04:40

know you are always someone who's

1:04:43

going to say I'm just part of

1:04:45

a movement. But I am curious

1:04:47

because you are eighty

1:04:49

five. Maybe you think about

1:04:51

this from time to time. But what

1:04:54

do you want your legacy to be

1:04:57

or what do you want to have left behind? Oh

1:04:59

that's not up to me. I don't think.

1:05:02

I mean, you know, in a kind of general way,

1:05:04

I would hope that people

1:05:06

think I did my best and I

1:05:09

tried to leave the worlds a little more

1:05:11

just than it was when I showed up. But

1:05:13

I don't think it's up to me, you

1:05:16

know. I think I find inspiration

1:05:20

or learning in the lives

1:05:22

of people who came before me that probably

1:05:25

they wouldn't have predicted. I

1:05:28

will leave with trust. You

1:05:31

have a poem that you wrote twenty five

1:05:33

years ago, and

1:05:35

you wrote it's

1:05:38

one of the very few poems I've ever written,

1:05:40

from two decades ago, when I was just beginning

1:05:42

to discover the blessings of

1:05:44

aging. I was going to read it,

1:05:46

but perhaps you wouldn't mind reading

1:05:48

it. Okay, if

1:05:52

I can see but a minute,

1:05:56

dear Goddess, I pray for the courage

1:05:59

to walk naked at

1:06:01

any age, to wear red

1:06:03

and purple, to be unladylike,

1:06:06

inappropriate, scandalous,

1:06:08

and incorrect to the very end.

1:06:14

Do you think you've done that? No?

1:06:17

Probably not

1:06:23

set you up so nicely. All

1:06:25

you have to do is say yes, No,

1:06:28

I just mean that. I you

1:06:31

know that in communal

1:06:33

situations where

1:06:36

I anyway, I'm not that conscious

1:06:38

of the role I'm playing. But

1:06:40

I think that basically

1:06:43

I've done that. It greatly

1:06:45

aided by the fact that I've never had a job.

1:06:48

Nobody can fire me, so,

1:06:52

you know, and that is a gift of

1:06:55

freelancing. It makes it harder to pay the rent

1:06:58

sometimes, but it's a gift. So

1:07:00

I do think that because of

1:07:02

that, I've been more able

1:07:05

to be who I actually am

1:07:07

and not worry about out getting fired or

1:07:10

what's going to happen the next day or the next And

1:07:12

that's a gift of my situation,

1:07:14

a gift of my parents, a gift of the

1:07:16

movement, a big gift. Well,

1:07:19

you may not have had a job, but

1:07:22

I really do appreciate all the work you've

1:07:24

done. So it's a

1:07:27

better an honor having you. And

1:07:29

I would like to say that you are

1:07:33

by far, in a way, the

1:07:35

most careful and thoughtful and best

1:07:38

prepared interviewer I've ever had.

1:07:40

And now that I am losing my memory,

1:07:43

I'm definitely calling you up. We'll

1:07:48

have to give you my number, Okay, Gloria, Stina,

1:07:50

thank you so much, thank you, and

1:08:15

that's our show special

1:08:17

thanks this week to Gloria Steinham. If

1:08:19

you'd like to learn more about her, be

1:08:21

sure to visit our show notes at www

1:08:24

dot talk easypod dot

1:08:26

com. You can subscribe and listen

1:08:28

to this podcast on Spotify, Stitcher,

1:08:31

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1:08:33

you do your listening. If you'd

1:08:35

like to join our mailing list, drop me a

1:08:37

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1:08:40

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1:08:42

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1:08:44

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1:08:46

course, this show would not be possible

1:08:49

without our incredible team.

1:08:51

Our executive producer is janick U Bravo.

1:08:54

Our associate producer is Nicky Spina.

1:08:56

Our lead editor is Andre Lynn.

1:08:59

Assistant editors are David Harding, Eli

1:09:01

Weisse and Rina Jung. Marketing

1:09:04

by patrise Lee. Our interns

1:09:06

are Jewels Rector and Grace Perkins.

1:09:09

Music by Dylan Peck, illustrations

1:09:12

by Christia Chenoy, graphics

1:09:14

by Ian Jones, Derek Gaberzak

1:09:16

and Ethan Seneca. And the show

1:09:18

is produced by Caroline Reebuck. I'm

1:09:21

Sam Vragoso. Thank you for

1:09:23

listening to Talk Easy. Coming

1:09:26

up, we have talks with Miranda July, Claudia

1:09:29

Rankin and Jenna Malone. Until

1:09:32

then, rest in peace to

1:09:34

the inimitable, incomparable

1:09:38

Ruth Banner Ginsburg and

1:09:40

thank you for everything.

1:09:44

We won't let you down, Stay

1:09:47

safe and so long,