09/03/2026
Gloria Steinem spent her life changing the rooms women were allowed to enter. But one of the things we admired most about her was what she did once she was in them: she kept making room.
She never seemed interested in being the last word. She invited younger activists into her literal living room. She listened to people who came after her. She shared what she knew without acting like experience gave her ownership over the movement.
She didn’t just put a hand down to pull the next woman up. She helped build the ladder. And then she kept inviting more of us to climb it.
In 2025, our team had the extraordinary privilege of being in community with Gloria and a room full of women trying, in all of our different ways, to change this country. In this clip, she told us she had just read about a woman in India who claimed to be 135 years old. Then, looking around that room, she said we had inspired her so much that she had decided she would try to live to 135, too.
She didn’t make it to 135. Gloria died yesterday at 92.
But damn, did she use those 92 years.
There are a million Gloria Steinem quotes worth carrying with us, but today we keep coming back to this one:
“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke…she will need her sisterhood.”
