AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Gloria Steinem has died. The trailblazing journalist and activist for women's rights was 92 years old. Throughout her life, Steinem pushed back on gender stereotypes and championed feminist ideals like reproductive freedom. For many, her name became synonymous with the fight for women's rights. And for some, like filmmaker and activist Abigail Disney, Gloria Steinem was also a friend and mentor. Abigail Disney joins us now to remember Steinem. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, and I'm very sorry for your loss.
ABIGAIL DISNEY: Thank you. And I'm just so happy to talk about Gloria.
CHANG: Thank you. Well, what did it feel like when you first heard this news today?
DISNEY: I've been in Ireland for a lot of the summer, but I did, last week, get on a plane and go see her before it was too late. So I'm really happy I had that little moment with her, even if it was just so brief. But I was so blown away that she was, you know, just as gracious and funny and smart as she always was.
CHANG: Well, you have said before that you grew up in a household where feminism was criticized - like where Gloria Steinem's name was spoken about as if she were some sort of cultural villain. And then I understand that you met her for the first time at an event in 1993.
DISNEY: Yeah.
CHANG: Tell me what surprised you the most when you finally met her in person?
DISNEY: Her hilarity. You know, I told her, sometimes I picture you with a Groucho Marx cigar in your hand...
CHANG: (Laughter).
DISNEY: ...Because she would make - she would wisecrack like that all the time. And I did not see that coming, you know? So we just cracked each other up and had a great time together because she was so funny.
CHANG: Wait - how is it that you came to be such close, personal friends with her as an adult?
DISNEY: You know, it's funny 'cause - yeah - I didn't meet her until I was 33. It was 30-some-odd years ago. And I said, would you ever have lunch with me? I mean, like, I was in awe, as everyone is. You know, I was in awe of getting a chance to meet her. And she said, yeah, that would be great. And it's so strange because she just made room for me in her heart, and she just opened wide up to me. And then we have a series of things, like I was in the hospital for quite a long time in '99, at Lenox Hill, which is right around the corner from where she lived. And she would come two or three times a week to visit me - a couple Starbucks in her perfectly manicured hands. And...
CHANG: (Laughter).
DISNEY: ...And we would just sit there. 'Cause what are you going to do? I'm on bed rest for 10 weeks, you know?
CHANG: Yeah.
DISNEY: So - and she understood - really understood that - just how terrifying the situation was for me and that the only way to help me was to just come and talk and shoot the breeze with me. And...
CHANG: Shoot the breeze.
DISNEY: ...She took that really seriously. And, you know, I came from something very different than what she came from. And there was a lot to sort of dig my way out from under.
CHANG: What do you mean? You mean...
DISNEY: Well...
CHANG: ...As a Disney?
DISNEY: Yeah. As a Disney and from a very politically conservative, socially conservative family. You know, I was really, of all the issues flying around in the '60s and '70s, feminism was the one that got my family most worked up and angry...
CHANG: Oh, interesting. Wow.
DISNEY: ...You know. And so, you know - and my mother used to say things to me like, oh, women make terrible friends. Never trust a woman, and things like that. I mean, a lot of what came out of her mouth was just the polar opposite of what Gloria thought, and so that's why I was so drawn to her from the beginning. Because she felt like an other mother who might be better for me than the one that I was assigned. Not that I didn't love my mother but, you know, it was just - she could look at a person and see everything she thought possible that they were capable of. And then she would just be bent on helping you understand how capable you were...
CHANG: Yeah.
DISNEY: ...Of things...
CHANG: Yeah.
DISNEY: ...Big changes, big things. And so every time I was maybe having doubts or not sure of the next thing, you know, she was there with the right sentence and the right encouraging emotion.
CHANG: Was Gloria ever uncomfortable? Did she ever discuss this with you - about being uncomfortable being treated as, like, the embodiment, the face, the spokeswoman of feminism, that it was all her.
DISNEY: Yeah.
CHANG: How did she carry that?
DISNEY: Yeah. No, she hated that. She really hated that. Because she felt, you know, she got too much credit for things that weren't necessarily all her doing. And that worked badly in her life because then people would pin every problem on her - the hostile people would. And there were plenty of women in the feminist movement who thought she was problematic because she was pretty - that she was, you know, kind of putting forward, you know, a pleasing face that a lot of feminists didn't want out there.
CHANG: A conventionally attractive female face...
DISNEY: Exactly. And it felt like...
CHANG: ...That maybe didn't represent the diversity of the...
DISNEY: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Movement.
DISNEY: Well, yeah. And, you know - and by the way, she got a lot of hostility as a white feminist. But, you know, what is so interesting was she was the white feminist who - was the first white feminist who was, from the beginning, saying this is not a white movement. You know, if the vast majority of feminists are Black women and we need to be listening to women of color, and so she wouldn't go speak. If somebody invited her to speak - just her - she would bring someone with her. It was a woman of color. She had partners who would travel with her to everything. And she was constantly insisting on, like, don't leave people of color out of this story because they are everything.
CHANG: How do you want women now and in the future to remember and to honor Gloria Steinem? Or how do you think she would want to be honored, to be honest?
DISNEY: You know, I told her - I think the word mensch is for men - but I think she's a wensch (ph). You know...
CHANG: (Laughter).
DISNEY: ...She's been the best kind of wensch I can imagine. And...
CHANG: The best kind of wensch.
DISNEY: ...That would be - you know, if she could, like, get everybody to recognize how mutual and cooperative all social movements need to be to really make a change, that there doesn't need to be a hero at the top of the hill to - and she didn't need that. If everybody would recognize their own power and pitch in together, that was all she wanted to help people do. And women do have it better, believe it or not. It's hard to imagine right in this moment, the way people are talking about it. But we do have it better 'cause we have more rights, and we have more recourse. So I think of that kind of movement as the heart of how Gloria wanted to change the world, and she had a big part in it.
CHANG: Filmmaker Abigail Disney, remembering her very good friend, Gloria Steinem. Thank you so much, Abigail, for talking to us on such a difficult day. It was a lovely conversation. Thank you.
DISNEY: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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