Who wouldn’t want Gloria Steinem as a special guest speaker at your school? I would have absolutely fainted if I knew she was coming to mine. Well, the lucky students over at Hannah Senesh Community Day School were able to see Steinem give a live talk during their Conversations at Senesh series.
Here’s some of the awesome things the iconic Jewish feminist (who is in her 80s!) said during the talk, words you could tape to your fridge:
1. “We don’t always get the full stories of the people in our families.” So true, especially something to remind ourselves when we are mad with our moms (who are always going to be our mothers). Steinem spoke about her paternal grandmother and how she was part of the suffragist movement as a Jewish women who also kept kosher.
2. “I am, and many of us, are living out the unlived lives of our mothers.” She described how her own mother was a writer, but didn’t get to use all of her talents. Because of this, her mother rebelled by trying to do it all–having a career and a child–but simply couldn’t sustain it in her era.
3. “It’s important to be able to argue passionately. It requires a golden level of trust. We don’t learn from sameness, we learn from difference.” Steinem described how the somewhat argumentative nature of the feminist movement right now is not altogether a bad thing, as it requires us all to do the hard work of having disagreements in order to find a common middle ground–a way to truly see all sides.
Check out the rest of the talk below:
