Gloria Steinem has spent more than half a century as one of the most prominent feminist voices in America. A writer, activist, and organizer, she co-founded Ms. magazine in the early ’70s and spent decades on the road speaking, marching, and building a movement. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013. Now, at 92 years old, she is still writing and, as she will tell you, still learning. And she still has plenty to say—except, perhaps, about beauty.
The irony is not lost. Steinem’s appearance—striking and stylish, with center-parted, highlighted hair—has always been part of her story, even if she never made it the point. “I was ‘the pretty one,’” Steinem previously told The New York Times of her early days as an activist. So her lifelong insistence that beauty doesn’t matter is worth examining.
Beauty—and the expectations that come with it—is the topic of the talking circle about 25 guests have gathered for today sponsored by Maison, a private membership network for women entrepreneurs. It’s one of many subjects Steinem has covered at the meetings she regularly holds at the Upper East Side brownstone she’s lived in since the ’60s. (The week before, Steinem hosted a group of clinicians and reproductive justice leaders to discuss abortion care.)
“Each person is a world,” she says, “and we get to learn from each other.” In her living room, where the event is being held, crystals from Steinem’s late sister are sprinkled about, catching the light as it pours through the windows and bounces off the yellow walls. Photos and art from decades of travel and activism fill the space. Steinem is far from done collecting memories: She tells me that she’s read about a woman in the Himalayas who claims to be 130 years old. “That’s a good goal,” she says, without a trace of irony. “I’ll try.”
This is classic, beautifully unbothered Steinem. She has spent more than half a century focused on what women can do, not how they look, so when I sat down with her before guests arrived and reminded her we’d be discussing beauty, she laughed—and then was characteristically direct. Here, her thoughts—and deliberate silences—on aging, plastic surgery, and beauty standards.
“If I could sit down with a room of 10-year-old girls, I would want them to know that beauty is not important—and that they could be president.
