“We may look up and feel powerless and think there's nothing we can do, but it's not true. There are things we can do at each level.” - Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem: “I still have hope and energy after all these years . . . because I travel.”
Credit...Marianne Barcellona
Gloria Steinem has been fighting the good fight for about eight decades. After all, the 89-year-old activist and women’s advocate has been the voice for the feminist movement since the 60s. She started Ms magazine in 1969, went undercover as a Playboy bunny, co-founded the Women’s Media Center aimed at making “women visible and powerful in the media” in 2005, published her memoir “My Life On The Road” in 2015, and these days travels the globe lecturing or speaking at conferences (like this one).
Speaking of her book, inside Steinem calls herself a “wandering organizer,” and she explains how a life of travel has “boosted her spirits, shaped her politics and made her a household name.” And it offered me this wonderful reminder that sits so truthfully with me every day - “keep moving, and keep asking questions.” And that has always been my life philosophy - thanks Gloria. And I am off, on the road again…
One of her more recent projects is in collaboration with the photographer Annie Leibovitz and this is where I interviewed her. The traveling pop-up exhibition, entitled “Women: New Portraits” as commissioned by UBS, are portraits taken by Leibovitz of women who have, in her words, “achieved something.” Over a year the duo covered ten cities across the globe setting up this very exhibition in spaces that are in various stages of evolution - or as Leibovitz calls them: “places that would eventually have another life.”
One such place is an art deco building on the West Side Highway of Manhattan - the Department of Correctional Services. Constructed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same architectural firm that built the Empire State Building, the space morphed into “The Women’s Building.” This center, that opened in 2020, was developed, designed, and constructed by an all female workforce, and now inhabits as a place of activism.
Although I followed the exhibition around the world and saw it in 6 cities, the New York show stayed with me…
“The destruction preceding the construction of this building needed to coincide with this traveling exhibition, and it all worked out,” said Steinem. “Welcome to a place of freedom that was formerly a place of limits and difficulty and discrimination. There could be nothing more symbolic than this space right now - nothing we need more than this space right now,” she continued, as she stood in front of the Annie portraits right in the womb of the building.
The shots, mounted in the building’s gym, are of Woman (with a capital “W” on purpose) who according to Leibovitz, are “extraordinary in their fields.” And so it’s fitting to see the faces of Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, Yoko Ono, Misty Copeland, Venus and Serena Williams, Cindy Sherman, Caitlyn Jenner, Patti Smith, Lena Dunham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Andrea Medina Rosas, Malala Yousafzai, Aung San Suu Kyi, Patti Smith, and, of course, Gloria Steinem. “You can’t look at all those images without seeing the true human diversity of women, not characterized by whatever feminine idea or roles of who we’re supposed to be,” said Steinem.
And this is exactly where Steinem injects herself into the cultural and political fray. Her ability to take on anyone - particularly the patriarchy - is what has given her a solid and worthwhile platform for her entire career. Her deep concern for women has stretched beyond just furthering the feminist motive - it was created as an inclusive way of being in the world. And that is why this exhibition is so important to the activist: “This exhibit captures what it’s like to be a human being and therefore it shatters gender, because it’s so diverse. It helps us realize that gender is artificial,” said Steinem.
The show comes at a critical time in history - particularly for women - with yet another new rise of white male power in America. Asking Steinem about the future, that Donald Trump presidency and how this photography exhibition has personally evolved for her since his election day, she responds with a hopeful “the best is yet to come.” She goes on to say: “What has been revealed to us is a truth that we must now deal with. Never again is anyone going to say 'post-feminist' or 'post-racist.' Because there is still something like a third of the country that is still locked into these old hierarchies.”
Steinem is now more serious than ever about every single American needing to get involved and stand up for what they believe. With yet another election coming up in two years, she reflects on an election where she would have desired so much to have a first female president. “Speaking for myself, I am concerned, I am worried, but I also know that in the popular vote of 2016, two million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Trump,” she said. “And it’s also true that all of these issues that are being considered human rights issues have majority support. But, after Trump’s election, the U.S. is like a victim of domestic abuse.”
And then with a bright smile Steinem adds, “The first generation of majority babies of color has already been born. So, trust your own instincts; have empathy for one another; do not demonize the 53 percent of (white) women who voted for Trump in 2016.”
For more on the exhibition visit www.ubs.com/annieleibovitz.
And one of my favorite interviews ever with Steinem is here - with Interview magazine.
Photo Source: UBS Group AG, Photographer: Annie Leibovitz