Julia Gets Wise with Gloria Steinem
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Hey, listeners, it's me. Julia were back for season three of wise than me, and we have so much more wisdom to share from the legendary older women who have joined me this season. I can't tell you the number of times when i'm having these conversations.

I find myself scrambling for up like a pizza paper or a nap in or whatever I can find in my desk to quickly drop down some nugget that my guest is sharing in our conversation. I mean, you've probably have the same experience, right? Well, guess what problem solved.

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Maybe thanks to wise than me, i've been thinking a lot lately about what that means to be a woman, which is what I am, and so happy to be. I know that every individuals journey with women hood is unique, and I recognized that my experience might not align with everybody else who identifies as a woman, but I cherished the aspects of femininity that resonate with me. I mean, I just love being feminine, being a feminine person.

I loved Carrying and birthday children. I love physically being a woman, which is why IT IT was so hard to breast cancer, or it's one of the many reasons IT was heart to have breast cancer because IT took part of that away from me. But anyway, I think the thing that I really love most about being a woman is the kind of emotional intelligence that comes with IT.

I think it's a big part of what they call female intuition. There's a reason that it's not called male intuition. I believe in female intuition, and I believe I have. And so do my fabulous sisters have. Why I, at critical moments in my life, i've had this intuition, this feeling of knowing something without any conscious reasoning and knowing IT with certainty, kind of certainty that surpasses intellectual reasoning or fact gathering or waiting of evidence. And I trust that intuition because, Frankly, it's never been wrong that I can think of, and I can feel that with other women.

And I love IT, I have two groups of really close female friends, one group of friends from grade school and another from college that includes apology ing, cabin, the beauty and the brain who produces the show with me, and a third, sort of looser group of more recent friends. I call them my work friends, even though they're not all from work. And by more recent, I mean, like twenty five years ago instead of forty years or fifty years ago.

And all of these women are unbelievably important to me, critically important. Don't get me wrong, I like my man. Men are great.

They talked too much, of course, but they're great. When I get together with these women, I am at ease. I don't know how to say up just completely at is, I mean, sure.

IT helps that we have decades of shared history and common interest and tastes and politics and values and to share a sense of humor. But I think there's something more more I don't know what ancient, more transcendent about the bond that I feel with them. IT is profound, and for me it's a very important part of having a happy life.

And IT goes back to that emotional intelligence. These women are emotionally smart. Like when I was really suck, my friend Caroline would come over. All of them would come to tell the truth, which is just such an incredible gift that I can thank any of them enough for. But I remember particularly carling coming when I was sick as a dog sick.

And I would just sit there in my bedroom, you know, and SHE didn't have to say anything, and I didn't have to say anything, and I could be so relaxed about that, and sometimes not even respond if he did say something and he got IT. And we would just be there, you know, occupying space together, or even when I was in chemotherapy and I was hooked up to all these poisonous and I had a huge cold cap on my head, the cold cap is something you can do to keep you from losing hair during chemo. And all of my girlfriends would come to my chemo, and i'm toying.

IT was a tiny space, and like, eight women would squeers into the space and they would bring food and they would be chatting. And carleen made everybody who came where a mustache SHE brought these fake mustache es for everybody to wear. That was sort of part of the uniform.

And everybody looked ridiculous. And IT was just so hilarious. I was sort of slipping in and out of because, you know, you're on drugs.

Instead, I was sort of slipping in and out of kind of consciousness being there. And I would look, and all my girlfriends would be hawing laughing in master ashes IT, which just none of that made sense. All of IT was beautiful, you know, and and that might not be unique to a female friendship.

I mean, obviously loyalty isn't gender based. IT just speaks to the depth of tranquility that I feel with my female friends. And carlins, you know, she's like a hot shot lawyer.

There are all hot shots. These women, these are all very accomplished people. But there is no sense of that success being definitional when we get together.

If you know what I mean, every time we gather, no matter the occasion, I know that the conversations will be completely interesting to me. You know, I want to hear everybody's thoughts. Nothing will be off the table as far as intimate conversation.

nothing. And we'll laugh our asses of the kind of laughing that, you know, that hurts the next day, right? Oh my god, you can put a Price on that.

I mean that, well, that is just living, living good. There's a spectacular book that my friend's yog and James gave us. It's by mra common and it's called women holding things. It's an extraordinary book of her illustrations and writing. And it's just what the title describes, its dragging of women holding things.

And here's what he says, what do women hold the home and the family and the children and the food, the friendships, the work, the work of the world and the work of being human, the memories and the troubles and the sorrow and the triumph and the love. How true is that? That's what liman hold.

And I think that that is maybe at the heart of why I love my female friend. So, and I need to connect with them often to replenish my strength and my spirit. It's because we women are holding things, real, substantial things with physical weight and a serial things to which have so much wait as well.

So when I get together with my female friends, I think we put those things down just for the moment. You know, when be we'd laugh. Maybe we have a glass of wine or two and if we need to, we ask each other for a little help with the load when we pick those things back up. And only another woman can fully understand that ah how wonderful then that today's conversation is with glorious time um.

Hi, i'm truly a li drive this and this is wider than me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wise.

You know how there are songs like, I don't know, blowing in the wind that are so ingrained in the culture. You can't believe somebody actually SAT down and grow IT. Well, I feel like today's guest is kind of the human version of that he is so encouraged in the culture.

You kind of forget that she's an actual, real person. She's much more than a leader. She's really an architect of the feminist movement.

I mean, if the feminist movement had a mount rushmore, for example, and in ought to SHE would be up there. That's how monumental her legacy is. SHE has been at the center of every conversation about the place of women in society since the early sixties.

SHE founded the national women's political caucus with Betty for dan bell, abzug e and surely chosen. And then in one thousand nine hundred and sixty eight, he was there in the nick stages of new ork magazine. And then with all that experience, SHE went on to cover ms.

Magazine in one thousand hundred and seventy two. I mean, I don't know if Young people today truly realized how important that magazine was in shaping feminist conversations and platforming women's work. critical.

But he didn't stop there. In fact, he still added, this woman, who has been the most enduring symbol of feminism, knows that the work is far from done. When SHE turned eighty, her friend and fellow activist Robin Morgan, told the new york times that SHE is more effective than ever.

She's a Better organizer now than he ever has been. She's a Better persuade. She's a Better rider. SHE jokes about turning her funeral into a fundraiser and continues to utilize every tool at her disposal because he understands activism is a job from which you never truly retire.

When you're on the front lines of a movement for all those years, you pick up a couple of accolades along the way. She's the recipient of a presidential metal of freedom from president brack obama, the freedom award from the national civil rights museum, the national magazine award, the lifetime achievement in journalism award from the united nations. And oh, she's written nineteen box that's barely scratching the surface of the impact SHE has had.

When someone asked her what her greatest contribution was to the women's movement, SHE said, I haven't made IT yet. Those are the words of a woman on a mission, a woman at whose feet I sit today and who is so much wiser than me glorious time. Um hi Gloria.

Now you've left me with the quantity of how I can possibly live up to that introduction. I mean, we should have a technological failures anyway. Thank you. And it's lovely to see you.

lovely. It's an honor. Um may I ask your real age, Gloria? Yes.

my real age is ninety. I'm in shocked as anybody else, I don't know exactly how IT happened, but I would just like to say that you're always the same person inside. I saw IT goes.

right? I love, i'd love IT. And how old do you feel?

I think we have an age when we kind of filled, you know, I mean, yes, and I would say mine was fifty.

I love that you feel fifty. By the way, I need to mention to you that you, to me, this is very significant. You and my mother share the same birthday and share the same age really.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, amazing to me. And you're both from ohio, which I also love.

And we survived. I survived to leto.

I don't know. yes. And he survived columbus and is here to tell the tell.

okay, we'll give a .

hug from me. I absolutely.

absolutely their notes. yes.

Do you exercise, Gloria? Do you have a routine and exercise?

I don't I didn't grow up with exercise routine. I'm not part of the generation that runs every morning. I have a wonderful woman who's a former rat who drops by twice a week and makes me exercise a bit.

which is fun. Um so as you've gotten older, has your thinking ability changed? Have you noticed changes? You doesn't seem as a no no.

I think I I have noticed changes which has caused me to, for instance, consider manufacturing A T shirt that says i'm at an age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.

I think this .

would sell how happened just like self.

I mean, the retrieval time, uh, is longer or the need for association with something else you know I think memory does because it's just more quantity for one thing of .

things to remember yeah gosh, that's a hilarious idea for A T. Shirt, and we may have to fabricate that. So I want to to read Gloria, a poem that you've written that is in one of your books, the truth will set you free, but first, it'll pissed you off as the title of the book.

And I would like to read this poem that you wrote, dear goddess, I pray for the courage to walk naked at any age, to wear red dom purple, to be unlady like inappropriate, scandalous and incorrect to the very end. So let's talk about the blessings of aging. I mean, have you've been able to live up to the expectations of that absolutely glorious pond that you wrote?

No, I am sure I haven't. I'm sure i've been too pressured. By the way, things are already being done to envision how they might be done um but I think especially because we still live with patriarchy and racism you know various structures that make no sense yeah it's good for us to imagine the most we can possibly imagine. So we move the boundaries of where we can go. And I could think that was my effort, one of my efforts to move the boundaries.

Well, let me ask you this in what ways you think you have gotten Better over the years? I mean, I know in your mind, you say, you think of yourself, sort of you feel fifty, what has age given you? What have the blessings of getting older given to you?

One big thing is that i'm past the age of expectation that we should follow a such pattern, which in my generation was very strong, that we should marry, we should have children, we should take her husband's name and his identity, you know, we should, in a way, lead a secondary life.

And that was very much the the norm, or at least the norm of expectations when I was growing up in toledo, in a factory working neighborhood where families were supported by their husband salary in the factory. Um then people generally got married very Young yeah so mean I always knew thanks to my mother having saved money, that I would be able to go to college, which already was a blessing beyond almost everybody in in my high school class. But I had no idea.

I mean, I got engaged when I was a senior in college because everybody got engaged in this was a very lovely, handsome sir able guy. And partly I went to india and took a fellowship and went to india and stayed there for two years, because both I was fascinated with india, but also I was trying to lead a different life. And I wasn't sure that I would be able to if I state home.

I was out a way of getting out of the engagement, by the way.

Yes, I sort of left my ring under the pillow and disappeared. Yes, right, right.

And your travels in india, I know you taught. I mean, that sounds so like your activism began there. Is that right?

Well, I certainly saw for the first time in my life the results of the grass roots populist movement because of the independence movement against the british, uh, and my hat, my gandhi and everything. And I was writing a essay about gandhi. So I was going around interviewing people he had worked with.

And finally I I got to a woman and named ala David chat adia great woman. And he was sitting on her porch, rocking and drinking liminal SHE listened to me. And finally he said, well, idea.

We taught him everything he knew. no. And IT turned out that the basis of gandhi's independence movement was a national women's movement, which already existed.

So there began.

yes, I began to understand that history was not always told in an accurate way. Well.

it's told through a male lens isn't IT yeah.

Well, in a cultural lens, it's good to think of history with a certain critical sense, because IT tended to be written by the winners yeah and not necessarily the whole truth right?

This seems very kind of tight and light weight on the heels of this conversation thus far. But I have to ask you, um I want to talk about beauty for a second because beauty and power are so interlocked with one another in a way that is probably quite well, negative.

What has you have gotten older? What if you had to unlearn or on brainwash yourself if you've had to? In terms of beauty, as a woman with your beautiful woman, i'm curious about that.

I don't think I was brainwashed into plastic surgery because i'm a coward. I still have my pencils. No, I didn't want to have, and a kind of surgical procedure, so I just didn't.

I probably have more great hair underneath here than you can see, right? That's one artificiality. probably.

yeah. But otherwise, you know, I might still be wearing the same blue jeans right now. I don't know how many years.

Blue jeans, that's the holy grail. If you find a good pair, blue jeans, and they really work, hang on .

to them.

I had actually had a question about your the glasses and your look back in the day. Was this a choice, Gloria, putting your glasses over your hair was out of sort of fashion statement for you that you found? Or because I also think you talked about hiding behind your glasses and hair, because I was very iconic that look obviously .

coming from a nearby ted family. I had needed glasses since I was about ten. And somehow I preferred the kind of pilot glasses, which were then men's glasses. You you had to go to the men's section to .

find yeah the air kind .

yeah right. And you know, they were good for both side and hiding behind.

Yes, but I get the sense that you don't feel like you need to hide behind anything. Now is that true now?

Well, I I mean, I didn't then yeah, I just think that age is a blessing. I mean, we're adding experience where discovering new thing, but it's not a drawback. But because the emphasis on women's age is still very much connected to reproduction and the years in which women can reproduce, it's still different for women than for men.

and sure is. And would you have any specific advice to women for aging without shame?

Well, I I don't know that my advice is helpful, but I think one thing is to be together with women who are your age and older so that you have an example and a counter weight to the media image of women who were always Younger, more beautiful, usually more White, and you know, just not realistic yeah community.

community, community and connection.

right?

Will get more wisdom from glorious time um after this break.

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Speaking of reproduction, you've said, of course, that the desire to control wood is central to all authoritarian system. So having said that, let's talk about this jobs decision, this fucking dobb's decision. Did you see that coming, Gloria? What I mean, what do we miss? How are you feeling?

Uh, well, I think that reproductive freedom should be as basic as freedom of speech. yeah. But because we are living in various forms of patriarchy, there is a continuing, though hopefully diminishing, effort to control women as the means of production.

I mean, when hitler, you should part the expression, hitler was elected. Yeah, and he was elected. The first thing he did the next morning was to order the pad locking of all the family planning clinics in germany.

R, A, A crime against the state in italy. Authoritarian, fascist movements have been especially obvious in their desire, compulsion, with controlling reproduction, whether for racist reasons or share patriotic reasons or both. So when the .

dover's decision came down, because obviously rovere wade came into one one thousand nine hundred seventy three, so fifty years later it's reversed. How do you react to that? Are you not surprised, Gloria?

Well, I I guess the hopeful part of me is, yes, alarmed. The realistic part of me is not prised, because the attempt to control women's bodies is the most basic means of production, and the means of reproduction has been consistent, and the reverse is also true. That is, when europeans first arrived here and a the women say, in upstate new york, the european american women were inspired by the native american women they lived next door to, who understood fully how to control reproduction, how to decide point and whether to have children. And that was an inspiration to the women next door.

I mean, I I once said in small gathering with women in in africa, in in a desert area, and they were showing me the urbs literally, that grew there, that they used for to increase fertility, that they used for abortive faience, that I mean, this is ancient knowledge. It's been around as long as people have been around. But um to understand how much that the control of reproduction is intertwined with racism is very important yeah right.

And the ultra right way folks who say you will not replace us are very aware that the first generation of babies who are majority babies of color has already been born. You know, that seems to me a good thing. I mean, if if this country looks more like the rest of the world, of course, probably have Better relationships with other nations, Better food, I don't know, but to if if you if you've been raised as a White supreme st, you may feel threatened by the fact that the first generation that's majority baby color has already been born.

Yeah, I mean, make sense. They are fearful of a shift in the power dynamic. When did you first realize that you had power, Gloria? when? If you felt the most powerful in your life?

Well, I I don't think I have ever felt that I had power in the sense of giving a command, because i've never been in that kind of situation, right? But I hope that is a writer, yes, and an activist or a speaker, I have the power of persuading, because that that still honors the decision making power of the person who is reading or listening to doesn't deprive them of power, but IT means that you can present an .

alternative. Yes, you know, it's funny because I was thinking about how, even in my own life, the patriarchal culture that we live in has sort of crept into my own life in a way that I almost didn't realize until I was sort of living IT. For example, I married, and I have two children, two sons, who I hope to jesus i've raised to be good feminist.

I think that I have, i'm going to ask him that question later. I'm going to ask me if they think of themselves as feminist. I would be curious to know what their answer would be but anyway, i'm using but I worked when they were both born.

I was working full time and that was a huge struggle for me um that was a hard thing for me to reconcile the going back and forth. And I had to intellection remind myself that working, being a mother who worked outside of the house was good for them to witness. But IT was a struggle for me. And I have the benefit of you know, learning from you and learning from the movement. And yet that struggle existed from.

well, the, because the reason we need a movement is we are still living in somewhat patriotic and racist society. So the superstition of what we should do are still with us, and they were still with you, but actually for your sons to see and experience a loving, authority tive, nurturing, achieving human being, who's a female human being is a gift, and that they are much more likely, if they happen to choose a female partner, to choose a female partner who really is a partner.

嗯， yeah, I wish I i'd called you thirty years ago, talk about this. I wish we have been friends back. Well.

well, but what your son say, I mean, they don't do bet. They don't say I wish. Tell of mother who stayed home and begged cookies all the time? No, no.

I don't think so. I've never heard them say that unless they say IT behind my back, but they're more intelligent than that. I know you've spoken about being with many people in your life as they've passed away, and I know that you were unable to be with your dad, which was a regret for you when he passed away. I would like to talk about grief and your experience with grief. What have you learned about grief as you've lost people who are dear to you?

Well, i've i've learned that it's inevitable and in a way, it's precious because it's a measure of how important and loved those individuals were a, whether it's fellow ABS who I remembers of speaking at her funeral and suddenly realizing that I was never going to see her again, which, you know, we just, I don't, you know, they just moments when comes over .

you IT hits you like a ton of A I I think .

about my mother and regret that SHE wasn't able to do what he loved because before I was born SHE had been a journalist and work for a newspaper which he loved and and had to give IT up um it's a reminder of how important IT is to live in the present .

right well, in these moments when you lost Bellah or I know when your husband David bail passed away. Were there activities or rituals that you took on that gave you solace or comfort?

Yes, I don't know. I mean, probably we we may all find different ways that I remember sitting here on the house where I am now writing a letter to David bail who, right, because after after he was gone. And I don't know why I did that exactly, but I just felt helpful to say things I wanted to say or having been able to say, I mean, everything I was doing .

IT for myself, clearly.

Yeah, of course yeah. But I don't know if I would be helpful to other people or not, you know, just to sit down and write a letter here.

Well, that's fascinating to me, actually, to write a letter. IT reminds, when my father past, I had a moment in which I was by myself, and I SAT down, and I just spoke to him. And I think I, I think I spoke for like easily an hour. I had a lot to say, but IT stayed with me. You know, no, it's important .

because there must be some sense of both continuity and feeling unfinished and continuing a connection right inside you. It's it's helpful.

It's helpful. And so in your letter to David bell, were you talking about things that we're unsaid or that you felt needed saying or reiterating or all of the above?

That's interesting. I'm not sure. I mean, I think I was speaking partly to what he wanted to continue.

IT had been able to also to his childhood, which had been a bit isolated in england, where he he grew up, and in south africa. But IT was a way of continuing a connection. Just in case, just in case. Yeah, we can still be heard.

I know my mother has said before that when someone who's closed, you pass us away in your life. It's not that the relationship ends.

it's just that IT change.

change. I can be comforting way to think about loss IT somehow cuts the loss and half, because the you can envision that the relationship is still there. It's just altered, right?

And sometimes so you can be helped by the relationship that's gone by saying to yourself, as I used to say to myself, what would Bella do in a certain city?

Yeah, right.

And that helps you to see alternatives.

Yeah, exactly. So I know you had said that you wanted that you want to make your funeral a funders or which, by the way, I think is a grand idea. Is that actually part of your I mean, with that, is that part of your plan? Do you have a plane?

No, I don't have a plan. It'll be up to whoever is around every charge, whatever. right? right? Yeah, no, I was. I don't think I wanted demand money from people in the end. Yeah, I get .

that. But you know, I pay, I pay. If the funeral was a for something that was critical for you, I would absolutely give money.

No fans. Also, maybe our funeral should be dancers. That kind of great.

I dance a blowout party.

right, right? That is the principle of the irish wake isn't IT. Yes, that is a party, right?

A big party, which i'm in favor of. You're a tap dancer, Gloria.

I am. Yes, I am. yes. I still have my tap shoes of serious work.

You do? You still have?

No, I did. I haven't in a long time, but but I could. I could.

We're going to take a short break right now. There's more with glorious time um on the other side.

Here you are. Your IT seems in perfect health. You're living this gorgeous life in new york. Do you of help our people helping you? Do you have, I mean, what how does that work? You know, like do you have I don't know what the word is caregivers or is somebody .

there with yes, I mean, it's sort of happens. I mean, there's a woman who came into my life when he was a student. Amy Richard was the smart st.

Person I know keeps an eye out for what's happening in my life and household, and i'm very grateful to her. I live in a Brownstone and there was a friend who lives on the third floor. I have the first two floors. SHE lives on the third floor, which is also very helpful because just to know that there is someone else i'm communicating with, those in the same house is good.

yes, very good.

Um I mean, I have the old editors of miss magazine. We have lunch at least once a month or so. You know, I have a chosen family .

that's nice.

I mean, I I have a sister who had six children and they have children. It's on no, but an older sister who is no longer alive, but her six kids and their kids over and they live in dc or in maryland. So I have relatives, but they're not close enough so that we see each other regularly. So it's really my family or friends who I see.

I think that that's amazing that you chose not to have children. And your sister tripled down on having children, right? That's an interesting reaction to the childhood that you both had. Were you close with your sister?

Yes, I mean, I was very, because he was nine years older, SHE looked after me. So SHE was kind of not a mother exactly, but definitely an older sister I looked up to.

Oh yeah, that's nice. And by the way, that's the other thing that is so amazing about your live story, that your grandmother was a suffer jet.

Did you know her? Yes, I I knew both my grandmothers a little .

bit and did SHE talk. SHE didn't talk about her work as a suffer jet.

SHE didn't. May be I was just too Young because I was my father's mother, and maybe I was too Young to have that conversation, but I didn't know that he was an activist and admired person in the community, that he had help to start the first vocational high school and tillie, and that he had encouraged women to go to the polls in groups because they were gangs of men and boys .

hanging around the arrest.

yeah, woman, out of voting. And I think, I think maybe he addressed congress once. I don't know. I mean, SHE died when I was very Young.

My other grandmother was not active in the political suffragists way, but he was none's very self willed, independent, and had been married to a railroad engineer. So SHE had a free pass on the railroad, and SHE would go. You know, distant journeys from time to time.

right? Yeah I I am so moved when you write about humor and laughter as somebody who lives in that world to a certain extent, when you say laughter is the only emotion that cannot be compelled, it's the essence of humanity and freewill and orgasm of the mind. And I would even argue that this is the most powerful tool to communication. And i'm thinking of when you were lecturing with flow Kennedy and speaking about feminism, and invariably somebody would ask, and i'll have you take IT from there if, well, anyway, you go head, you tell the story because it's a great I think .

what you're referring to is, I mean, I I travelled because I was for one thing, afraid to speak by myself. So I always found a friend. Yeah, me too.

By the way, I love having somebody with me.

dorthy pitman. He was her, FLorence Kennedy, who was a great civil rights lawyer. So in an audience, just an average audience, there would often be a hostile guy who would stand up and say, are you lesbians? And flow would always say, are you my alternative? Which was the perfect answer, because I made everybody laugh and I didn't tell him, you know, yes.

you answer him. I didn't answer him, which was appropriate. And I just completely took the air out of his viral.

And that's what I mean by a powerful tools. So not only does IT shut him down, but IT turns the energy of the room around completely. You know, that could have been very time.

I mean, I very grateful to the great flow Kennedy and dorthe openers and that women I elected with and learned so much from yeah, it's ancient knowledge that laughter is important because I mean, in in native american culture of various cultures, there is a god of left ter is neither male or female. Because the principle is, I think that laughter cannot be compelled. You can make someone cry or be angry or whatever, but laugh is free. You can't force somebody to who doesn't want to, right?

That's right. It's sacred.

And that, yes, absolutely.

yeah. And it's also interesting to me and that I think men particularly are often threatened by funny women. Do you agree with that?

I think authority doesn't want to be laughed at. So maybe man who clean to masco and authority don't want to be left out, especially by women that that robs them of their power and their view.

Do you think that women become more radical? I get older.

I I suppose nothing is true all the time, but I do think it's possible that is often true because we outlive the stereotypical expectations of marriage and family in a suburb ant role. If that still around or you know, I mean, I think just as we are maybe more ourselves when we're before ten or even years old and were little girls who are climbing trees and saying, you know, I know what I want, I know what I think.

And the feminine role hasn't descended upon us yet. We may also be more ourselves at the other end, the feminine role. And I always think that would be great if an army of grey hair women could take over the earth.

Well, then the earth would be a safe place, in my view.

You know, IT really.

IT would be much Better. I would be much Better. I certainly feel more radicalized. I've gotten older. And to your point, I feel free or of certain cultural burdens that felt heavier when I was Younger. And maybe A I don't know, stuff gets clear.

doesn't IT IT gets clear. I have you written about that or spoken about that because I think that is helpful to share that it's not necessarily something we've learned in school.

Yeah, i've never written a book that's not something i've tackled. I find that daunting. And I guess I ve spoken about. I mean, we talk about this on the show.

The whole reason that I wanted to do the show is because I felt like there was A A whole, a true need to hear from older women that IT was A A group of human beings that we're being listening into in the way that they should be and that we were. We're missing this extraordinary opportunity to clean wisdom and an information about life that we could find very useful. And i'd found this past, it's evolved me as a woman who is not getting Younger.

There's nothing more helpful than sharing experience and learning from each other and discovering we're not alone. We're not crazy and that we're together, we can do a lot more than we can individually is the nature of all political movements of civilization itself and is especially necessary for any group that has less power than others in the same area is especially good for a women. And I think it's especially helpful if we're in groups that kind of look like the country. So we're not replicating a racial division.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And what what's on your to do this? Korea.

how long did we have? We have forever. I know I owe my publisher book of essays, which I vote for some time, and I keep answering my email and having meetings and my living room and doing things other than then doing that, but I really do want to do that. I still value writing as a permanent way of communication um and I think the book is still as a kind of sacred being but books that probably come to take up less power in our lives as we've been reading online more and more I know but .

you know I find that when I read on mine, like given the newspaper for example, IT doesn't stick in my brain in the same way I need to hold you in my hands to have the stay with me in a sort of more impact. Actor, speaking of reading, I see there's a needle point pillow behind you. I'm wondering with that needle, le point pillow says .

that's on the chair. Don't know what does that say? IT says being on the best sellers list is the best revenge. And I think that because I wrote something that got bad reviews in the new year times and then sold anyway, yes.

that's very good. That's very good. Well, I hope that your next book of essays is actually on the best self list. I have no doubt that IT will be. And before I let you go, can I ask you a couple of very quick questions that we sort of like to ask our guests at the end of a conversation. Is there something that you would go back and tell yourself at twenty one?

Yes, I would just go back and put my arms around her and say it's gonna be all right. Because the precious then, given my age, the precious then we're especially to get married and have children and so on. And I was at that time just graduating from college and about to flee to india in order to to make a different path. But I would just put my arms around her and say, it's gonna all right.

Oh, that's nice. And is there anything that you wish you could go back and .

say yes to cash? That's interesting. I actually nothing springs to mind because I think I was a little addicted to yes. Did I haven't learned how? Say no so so maybe you wish you said over to the thing .

in the got IT. Is there anything you want to tell me about aging from where you sit right now? Is there anything you would like to tell me?

I think especially for women, the view of aging is more negative than IT should be. And actually it's the time of freedom IT resembles before the feminine role descended upon you when you were a little girl climbing trees, as I was really. Now you have the spirit back of the little girl climbing trees.

But you have probably a house of your own, a room of your own, a little bit of you, way more ability to do what you love and care about and see the people you love. So aging, as the time of freedom and reward, is probably a bit of a revolutionary idea for women since we've been so coral ed into the time of reproduction and raising kids. I love freedom and humor and rebellion and all kinds of great things awaiting.

I love IT. I'm the middle of a great rebellion, self ret rebellion, period. That's something to celebrate. Glorious stein am.

thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to look you up when i'm in new york.

and I promise.

I going to.

I promise, would be okay.

Lots of .

love to you.

loved you too. Wow, how about that high listeners? OK. So I thought I would be cool to have my mom listen in on my conversation with Gloria, because, you know, come on it's glorious time um and he was such a big force in my moms' lifetime and in my lifetime to and obviously doesn't heard that they have the exact same birthday so let's pop back into the zoo and see what he thought about IT. So, mommy, this time you're able to listen in on the whole conversation with goria son. How about that?

How about that? I mean, that is a moment in my life. I want to tell you a moment in my life, especially since we are under the same sign, yeah both area and were actually should to find out what time she's born. fuck.

Well, i'm going to see her. Am in fact, visit her new ork. So when I do that, I .

ask, I don't know what time I was born, but i've got my birth certificate and my little peat were this big okay. And I also love I love that when he, when he said, but i'm still here. Yeah you know.

do you feel like glorious standing was talking about? Do you feel kind of. Rebellion sort of a you feel more radical at this to a certain .

extent well well, um I can I don't use the word radical because that's not really me but what I feel is completely being honest to the situation to a situation and and so in a way you know that so that I can in learn a new situation.

meaning in your new living situation .

where you just moved committee and something comes up that I just know in in outrage about our question I have no no hey, to absolutely put IT on the line and say you is is tell me more about that or to really pursue the things that I where I feel my pulse .

rise good and do you I mean, do you consider yourself a feminist?

No, I mean in that yes, in my sympathies, in my actions now, yes, but a of of the same time, the cheese talking about, no, I I went along with with the the the cultural expectation and a life kind of has brought me in the feminism. But is not I I consider a feminist one of these women that sort of took up the cause and live with and I did not take up the cause. And i've i've come to IT.

I've sort of been broadsided by IT. I mean, totally believe in IT. That's nothing against feminine that that shows that I was embedded .

in the patriarchy.

The patriarchy? Yes, yes.

Well, actually have a question. So when I was born, you were teaching, and I remember that you tell the story of my dad. You were prior you're teaching. You were an actor, weren't you trying to pursuit? Didn't didn't a daddy will tell you that he didn't want you taking a acting jobs and I oh yeah .

but that was in college too I mean that was just from the get go no acting ah and and why was that did .

did he ever articulate to what was your understanding of why he didn't want you to perform well .

if IT was in college? And so I thought that was going to be the end of IT. Anyway, I never. I mean, at one point I had audition for the royal academy. That was myself more year. And if I had gotten that, I think I would have left to and whatever but I didn't get IT then uh so but your dad do not like me to be in in a acting he didn't like IT um because you said that that if you're an actor, all you did was say other people's words that is a stupid thing to do and where I think that also uh, there wasn't that he was jealous of of other attention that came about by and jealous of the time that I was. 嗯 so I think that and I think I knew that but that was just something that I just managed and was in in place all the time。 But that that IT was almost like I had a promise that it's gonna now when I graduate got IT.

So you didn't try you didn't try to pursue IT after graduation.

I did after he are separated.

but I was say .

truly half asked way. I mean, I was not um you know I I I I didn't really have training. I didn't have I didn't have anybody supporting me giving me confidence in doing that. I was just sort of out there and in some some wild and playing way. So um I never never god never really did anything with him.

Would have been fun if you could have gotten into this strawberry gs class in new york. Can you imagine that .

I was in a class in new york and he was a, he was A A small actor, and I can't remember his name now, but he was, he was, he was fun to be in the class. yeah. Ah.

so you took classes anyway.

but felt soft cities in the classes. I never talk about authenticity. I never felt, uh, I always felt like I was acting ah.

that was not that way.

A duke, a duke, I felt authentic. And afterwards I felt like I.

Well.

what you just did is not, I would say you might want to go back to the drawing board on that depiction of taking a shower.

My mother's .

just patting our shoulders and going like this as if that's how you.

oh, please, did get get me out of here.

Now you've done your depiction of taking a shower, and i'm giving you the academy a word for that. And and now you can thank the academy and say goodby. E to me.

So good bye. I just think all the people that made this responsible, I mean, made, made.

made IT to happen.

I love you.

I love you, love you by.

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