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Gloria at 77

Ms. Gloria Steinem Still Making A Difference

Aug 29, 2011 by Jane Genova

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At age 77, Gloria Steinem is having a renaissance in the media. Of course, thanks to Steinem, we single women didn’t have it rougher than we did. We could have, you know. For decades, Steinem not only fought that we women, single and married, be perceived and treated as people [not babes].

She also remained single, until late in her life. And that was despite her classically attractive face and bone structure which could have attracted a wealthy husband. Steinem was not from a privileged background.

In conjunction with the airing of the HBO documentary on Steinem, Maria Shriver interviews her in the current edition of Interview Magazine. The conversation has many surprises.

For example, despite all her emotional boldness in activism and not marrying, Steinem tells us that she essentially ducked whatever was associated with her painful childhood. Among other challenges, her mother was mentally ill. Now she’s starting to look backward and at who her mother was then, both stable and in a mental hospital for years.

Also Steinem, like all of us, has regrets. Among them is wasting time professionally. She wishes she had not accepted journalism assignments which didn’t give her fresh experience. What she should have done, she realizes now, was to have fought for those which would have stretched her.

Another regret was the famous investigative journalism on how Playboy bunnies were treated on the job. Doing that assignment pigeonholed her in ways she judged held her career back. She returned the advance on writing a book about that experience. At the time that meant she had to borrow money.

Obviously, at age 77, Steinem is still inspecting what the world is about and what was and is her role in it. Like Jane Fonda, also in her 70s and the author of a new book “Primetime” on living life, she’s leading the way on how we can do aging differently than our mothers had.

Graphic credit GS photo: PBS

About the Author

Jane Genova Has Written 24 Articles For Us!

I’m a coach, book author, and lecturer on careers, specializing in transitions. When I was 58, I restarted my professional life. That was in 2003. Since then I have I have muted into one of those renaissance folks who keeps multiple lines of work going. My latest book Over-50: How We Keep Working has helped thousands of people realize that exciting careers don’t depend on your age. I write four blogs: Jane Genova, Law and More, Career Transitions, Over-50.

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