1
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[woman] The truth has a lot of force.

2
00:00:11,470 --> 00:00:16,730
The women's movement was born out of an
explosion, a contagion of truth-telling.

3
00:00:16,808 --> 00:00:20,058
[women chanting] Sisterhood is powerful!
Join us now!

4
00:00:20,145 --> 00:00:22,185
Women, all the minorities,

5
00:00:22,272 --> 00:00:26,282
all of us must stand up together and
say, "No more."

6
00:00:27,569 --> 00:00:34,159
If one person tells their story,
that allows other people to say,

7
00:00:34,243 --> 00:00:38,413
"It's not only me.
This is happening to other people."

8
00:00:38,497 --> 00:00:40,537
That can transform everything.

9
00:00:41,041 --> 00:00:42,631
- [woman 1] Dear Gloria...
- [woman 2] Dear Gloria...

10
00:00:42,709 --> 00:00:43,879
Dear Gloria,

11
00:00:43,961 --> 00:00:47,051
you gave me the courage to
stand and fight for women.

12
00:00:47,130 --> 00:00:51,090
Your work laid the foundation for those
of us wanting something more from life

13
00:00:51,176 --> 00:00:53,426
than what was traditional and expected.

14
00:00:53,512 --> 00:00:59,022
As a young Mexican girl, your words
gave me a place in this movement.

15
00:01:00,561 --> 00:01:06,441
[Steinem] I get to read these
personal, political, wonderful letters.

16
00:01:06,525 --> 00:01:09,565
I'm lucky that I'm part of a movement

17
00:01:09,653 --> 00:01:12,993
that means the same thing
to me as to everybody else.

18
00:01:13,532 --> 00:01:16,542
It is perfectly clear to me that
only movements change the world.

19
00:01:16,618 --> 00:01:18,328
One person does not do that.

20
00:01:18,412 --> 00:01:19,542
It's a contagion.

21
00:01:19,621 --> 00:01:20,751
Dear Gloria...

22
00:01:20,831 --> 00:01:22,881
- [woman 1] Dear Gloria...
- [woman 2] Dear Gloria...

23
00:01:22,958 --> 00:01:24,838
- [woman 3] Dear Gloria...
- [woman 4] Dear Gloria...

24
00:01:51,987 --> 00:01:56,527
Every day of my life,
I get to do what I love.

25
00:01:57,910 --> 00:02:00,660
I think, like many women,

26
00:02:00,746 --> 00:02:03,956
I am living out the
unlived life of my mother.

27
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I spent quite a lot of my childhood taking
care of my mother, who was an invalid.

28
00:02:14,676 --> 00:02:19,886
She was very depressed and she had what
was then called a nervous breakdown.

29
00:02:20,265 --> 00:02:24,095
She was in a sanatorium for a year or two

30
00:02:24,186 --> 00:02:27,726
and got hooked on an early
form of tranquilizer.

31
00:02:27,814 --> 00:02:33,704
I kind of blamed her for the life
that she was living when I knew her.

32
00:02:33,779 --> 00:02:37,319
It took me a while to realize
what she had given up.

33
00:02:38,450 --> 00:02:44,160
She had been a pioneer and newspaper
reporter long before I was born.

34
00:02:44,248 --> 00:02:48,418
She had first wrote under a man's name.
Otherwise, she couldn't get published.

35
00:02:48,502 --> 00:02:52,762
And then became the Sunday
editor of the Toledo Blade,

36
00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:56,430
which was a big-city newspaper,
which was extraordinary.

37
00:02:57,636 --> 00:03:00,216
She was a real pioneer, and she loved it.

38
00:03:00,305 --> 00:03:01,555
She adored it.

39
00:03:02,474 --> 00:03:07,194
But it was an era in which women were
expected to stay home to raise families.

40
00:03:07,813 --> 00:03:10,483
So, she left what she loved.

41
00:03:11,900 --> 00:03:13,860
I think her spirit was broken.

42
00:03:14,778 --> 00:03:18,488
She should have been able
to live out her own life.

43
00:03:18,574 --> 00:03:21,954
It was the politics of life.
It wasn't her fault.

44
00:03:22,619 --> 00:03:27,369
I wouldn't change my childhood,
I don't think, because it--

45
00:03:28,041 --> 00:03:29,711
it gives me strength.

46
00:03:30,252 --> 00:03:33,132
And made me feel okay about
trying to change the world,

47
00:03:33,213 --> 00:03:35,423
as opposed to trying to conform to it.

48
00:03:38,343 --> 00:03:40,603
[Steinem] I went to
college, and I loved it.

49
00:03:41,430 --> 00:03:44,810
I became infinitely interested
in everything in the world.

50
00:03:45,934 --> 00:03:49,614
After college,
there was a generalized assumption

51
00:03:49,688 --> 00:03:51,568
that you would get
married and have children.

52
00:03:51,648 --> 00:03:53,688
Do everything we were supposed to do.

53
00:03:53,775 --> 00:03:57,355
But I didn't want to lead that life.

54
00:03:57,863 --> 00:03:59,873
I wanted to be a writer,

55
00:03:59,948 --> 00:04:03,788
so I kind of escaped to New
York and became a journalist.

56
00:04:06,496 --> 00:04:09,916
I didn't know any women who
were making a living writing,

57
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,090
so I didn't know how long it would last.

58
00:04:12,753 --> 00:04:15,303
There was quite a lot of
discrimination against women.

59
00:04:15,839 --> 00:04:18,089
I couldn't get equal pay,
couldn't get an apartment,

60
00:04:18,175 --> 00:04:20,635
was sent out for coffee
from editorial meetings.

61
00:04:21,595 --> 00:04:23,755
I was a freelance writer.

62
00:04:23,847 --> 00:04:29,647
I contributed to women's magazines,
to Glamour, to the Ladies' Home Journal.

63
00:04:29,728 --> 00:04:32,728
I wrote for the New York
Times Sunday magazine.

64
00:04:33,732 --> 00:04:37,822
I wanted to write about the political
subjects that interested me.

65
00:04:38,862 --> 00:04:41,822
But the serious subjects
were reserved for men.

66
00:04:42,407 --> 00:04:47,617
At the same time, I was inside
the anti-Vietnam War movement.

67
00:04:47,704 --> 00:04:50,674
I was marching, working for politicians.

68
00:04:51,166 --> 00:04:54,996
But my activism was just
separate from my writing.

69
00:04:55,087 --> 00:04:58,667
I couldn't integrate it
into what I was doing.

70
00:04:59,716 --> 00:05:01,716
[indistinct shouting]

71
00:05:01,802 --> 00:05:05,722
[announcer] Last spring, Cesar Chavez,
a Mexican-American union organizer,

72
00:05:05,806 --> 00:05:08,846
successfully led America's
first farm labor strike

73
00:05:08,934 --> 00:05:12,024
among Mexican grape workers in California.

74
00:05:12,104 --> 00:05:15,694
[Steinem] I had been working for
Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers,

75
00:05:15,774 --> 00:05:18,114
trying to help and raise
money for the union.

76
00:05:19,278 --> 00:05:24,028
Cesar had organized a very important
Poor People's March to Calexico.

77
00:05:24,658 --> 00:05:28,698
But it was happening in obscurity.
There were no reporters there.

78
00:05:28,787 --> 00:05:32,327
I got senators and movie people to go.

79
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,040
Then that attracted the press.

80
00:05:35,460 --> 00:05:38,630
[speaking Spanish]

81
00:05:40,007 --> 00:05:44,847
[Steinem] The migrant workers were all
living in poverty and very bad conditions.

82
00:05:45,554 --> 00:05:48,144
And it was especially
difficult for the women

83
00:05:48,223 --> 00:05:53,353
because they were also subject to sexual
harassment and assault in the fields.

84
00:05:53,437 --> 00:05:55,437
They had their children to look after.

85
00:05:56,607 --> 00:05:58,647
They had the least power.

86
00:05:59,818 --> 00:06:05,158
So, I began to raise money and tried
to be supportive directly to the women.

87
00:06:07,034 --> 00:06:09,584
I think I was relating to those women.

88
00:06:10,078 --> 00:06:13,788
Their situation was not profoundly
different from that of other women.

89
00:06:13,874 --> 00:06:16,674
Even though the poverty was so severe,

90
00:06:17,169 --> 00:06:21,589
it was just an exaggerated
version of that condition.

91
00:06:22,883 --> 00:06:26,393
And I realized that our causes are linked.

92
00:06:29,765 --> 00:06:33,685
Dear Gloria,
I was born in a small town in Mexico.

93
00:06:33,769 --> 00:06:36,439
When I was young, my mother left my father

94
00:06:36,522 --> 00:06:40,362
and fled the traditional
machismo ideals of her community.

95
00:06:40,776 --> 00:06:43,446
My mother bravely swam
across the Rio Grande,

96
00:06:43,529 --> 00:06:48,619
seeking a new life in the United States
and later, sent for my sister and me.

97
00:06:49,034 --> 00:06:53,414
We joined her in Texas.
All of us were undocumented immigrants.

98
00:06:53,914 --> 00:06:57,794
Since my mom didn't speak any English,
she ended up working as a maid,

99
00:06:57,876 --> 00:07:00,296
even though she'd been a teacher in Mexico.

100
00:07:00,379 --> 00:07:05,299
"I remember her employers talking down to
her and treating her like she was stupid."

101
00:07:05,384 --> 00:07:07,394
Because she couldn't understand them.

102
00:07:07,886 --> 00:07:10,886
My mom struggled to support
us as a housekeeper.

103
00:07:10,973 --> 00:07:14,693
We were frequently homeless and
forced to live in women's shelters.

104
00:07:15,269 --> 00:07:17,599
I hoped and prayed my
life would get better.

105
00:07:18,438 --> 00:07:22,988
One day, during high school,
a guest speaker came to my English class.

106
00:07:23,068 --> 00:07:25,238
She gave a talk on inspirational women.

107
00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:28,870
"And she told us about you, Gloria."

108
00:07:28,949 --> 00:07:33,749
In my community, women got married
and had kids at 20 years old.

109
00:07:33,829 --> 00:07:37,919
I'd never known anyone who made a
career out of thinking and writing.

110
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:43,050
"I started spending lunch periods in
the library so I could read your books."

111
00:07:43,130 --> 00:07:47,050
The more I read, the more I felt
you were speaking directly to me.

112
00:07:47,134 --> 00:07:50,264
You spent years fighting
alongside immigrant workers,

113
00:07:50,345 --> 00:07:52,465
fighting with women like my mother.

114
00:07:52,556 --> 00:07:55,306
You inspired me to have bigger ambitions.

115
00:07:55,392 --> 00:07:58,982
You made me realize my thoughts
were important enough to be heard.

116
00:07:59,062 --> 00:08:02,862
"I decided I was going to get my PhD."

117
00:08:02,941 --> 00:08:05,741
I'm now in my fifth year of my PhD program.

118
00:08:05,819 --> 00:08:09,619
My work focuses on
intersectionality and immigration.

119
00:08:09,698 --> 00:08:13,198
"I want to be the Gloria for my community."

120
00:08:13,285 --> 00:08:16,995
And show how strong immigrant
women and women of color can be.

121
00:08:17,497 --> 00:08:18,917
[Steinem] Makes you cry.

122
00:08:22,294 --> 00:08:26,674
In 1968, Clay Felker,
who was a wonderful editor,

123
00:08:26,757 --> 00:08:32,097
gathered together a group of
writers to start New York magazine,

124
00:08:32,721 --> 00:08:35,141
which was the first of
the big-city magazines.

125
00:08:35,682 --> 00:08:39,442
And because I was part of that group,
they let me name the departments.

126
00:08:39,811 --> 00:08:44,531
So I gave myself a political
column called "The City Politic."

127
00:08:45,275 --> 00:08:51,025
That was the first time I could really
write about everything of interest.

128
00:08:54,243 --> 00:08:57,453
I would like to show you the
picture of a two-day-old infant.

129
00:08:57,913 --> 00:09:03,593
The state legislature here in New York
were holding a hearing about abortion,

130
00:09:03,669 --> 00:09:07,009
which was then completely
illegal in New York State.

131
00:09:07,881 --> 00:09:12,591
And they were trying to decide whether
to liberalize the state abortion laws.

132
00:09:12,678 --> 00:09:17,808
But the legislators had invited
14 men and one nun to testify.

133
00:09:18,725 --> 00:09:23,055
[chuckles] So,
some pioneers in the women's movement,

134
00:09:23,146 --> 00:09:25,816
in a church downtown,
in the basement of the church said,

135
00:09:25,899 --> 00:09:29,359
"No, wait a minute. Let's hear from women
who have really had this experience."

136
00:09:30,529 --> 00:09:31,949
[woman] Women are suffering, and you know

137
00:09:32,030 --> 00:09:33,570
maybe men should start analyzing it

138
00:09:33,657 --> 00:09:34,867
from that angle for a change.

139
00:09:34,950 --> 00:09:36,370
[crowd applauding]

140
00:09:36,451 --> 00:09:40,211
[Steinem] So, I sat there as a
reporter for New York magazine

141
00:09:40,289 --> 00:09:43,169
listening to women tell their stories

142
00:09:43,250 --> 00:09:48,050
of having to seek an
illegal, dangerous abortion.

143
00:09:48,589 --> 00:09:49,919
[woman 2] You're blindfolded

144
00:09:50,007 --> 00:09:51,427
and taken some place

145
00:09:51,508 --> 00:09:52,928
you don't know where.

146
00:09:53,468 --> 00:09:55,758
You're not given an anesthetic,

147
00:09:56,513 --> 00:09:57,723
the instruments

148
00:09:58,140 --> 00:09:59,770
are not even sterilized.

149
00:10:00,100 --> 00:10:01,810
You wind up with an infection,

150
00:10:02,519 --> 00:10:06,109
you could wind up never
being able to have children.

151
00:10:07,274 --> 00:10:11,244
[Steinem] It was the first time in my life
I had ever heard women telling the truth

152
00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:13,780
about something that
only happened to women.

153
00:10:14,114 --> 00:10:16,874
Doing it in public. Taking it seriously.

154
00:10:17,284 --> 00:10:20,044
And that was a revelation.

155
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:22,000
I also had had an abortion.

156
00:10:24,208 --> 00:10:26,338
I was 22.

157
00:10:26,418 --> 00:10:29,378
I had just graduated from college.

158
00:10:30,339 --> 00:10:33,429
When I realized I was
pregnant, I was in London.

159
00:10:34,134 --> 00:10:37,054
And I really didn't know what to do.

160
00:10:37,137 --> 00:10:40,927
You know, should I, literally,
throw myself down the stairs.

161
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:43,020
I really was desperate.

162
00:10:43,602 --> 00:10:49,272
And then I learned that it was
possible to get an abortion in England

163
00:10:49,358 --> 00:10:53,858
if you found a doctor who was willing
to say that your life was at stake.

164
00:10:55,155 --> 00:10:58,945
So, I asked the doctor if
he would sign something

165
00:10:59,034 --> 00:11:02,794
saying this was a threat to my
life, though it was not.

166
00:11:03,747 --> 00:11:10,127
He paused for a moment and then said,
"I will if you promise me two things."

167
00:11:10,921 --> 00:11:14,971
First, if I didn't tell anyone his name.

168
00:11:15,050 --> 00:11:19,720
And if I promised to do what
I wanted to do with my life.

169
00:11:23,141 --> 00:11:25,311
I had never talked about it.

170
00:11:25,394 --> 00:11:27,604
It was illegal. It was secret.

171
00:11:28,105 --> 00:11:30,645
Listening to women tell their stories

172
00:11:31,066 --> 00:11:34,526
in the basement of the
church was a revelation.

173
00:11:34,611 --> 00:11:40,031
It was crazy that we had not
been able to do that before.

174
00:11:40,117 --> 00:11:45,497
Why? Since one in three American
women, even then, had had an abortion.

175
00:11:45,581 --> 00:11:48,331
Why was it illegal?

176
00:11:49,334 --> 00:11:52,254
It began to make me understand.

177
00:11:52,337 --> 00:11:54,757
We are not crazy. The system is crazy.

178
00:11:55,924 --> 00:12:00,804
When we tap into shared experience,
the world cracks open, you know.

179
00:12:02,848 --> 00:12:05,888
When I wrote about it in New York magazine,

180
00:12:05,976 --> 00:12:09,146
I wrote about the
underground feminist movement

181
00:12:09,229 --> 00:12:13,569
because it was the
communal excitement of it

182
00:12:13,650 --> 00:12:15,900
that I sensed in that room.

183
00:12:17,946 --> 00:12:20,316
My male colleagues at New York magazine,

184
00:12:20,407 --> 00:12:23,117
one by one kind of took me aside and said,

185
00:12:23,202 --> 00:12:25,952
"Don't get involved with these crazy women.

186
00:12:26,038 --> 00:12:28,578
You've worked hard to be taken seriously."

187
00:12:28,665 --> 00:12:32,205
But it was too late.
I already was one of those crazy women.

188
00:12:33,003 --> 00:12:35,213
-What do we want? -Equality!

189
00:12:35,297 --> 00:12:37,547
-When do we want it? -Now!

190
00:12:37,633 --> 00:12:40,433
[Steinem] The women's
movement was just beginning.

191
00:12:40,511 --> 00:12:43,101
It was irresistible and contagious.

192
00:12:43,180 --> 00:12:46,810
[chanting] Free our sisters,
free ourselves! Power to all women!

193
00:12:47,392 --> 00:12:50,402
We've been much too law-abiding
and too docile for too long,

194
00:12:50,479 --> 00:12:52,609
but I think that period is about over.

195
00:12:52,689 --> 00:12:55,189
The whole point was to give women a choice.

196
00:12:55,651 --> 00:13:00,361
That we were able to use our own
talents and do what we wanted.

197
00:13:00,447 --> 00:13:04,697
We want to reach out to every woman
whose abilities have been wasted

198
00:13:04,785 --> 00:13:09,075
by the second-class, subservient,
underpaid or powerless positions

199
00:13:09,164 --> 00:13:12,254
to which female human beings are consigned.

200
00:13:13,961 --> 00:13:17,301
There was a hunger to know
about the women's movement

201
00:13:17,756 --> 00:13:22,046
in many other states in the country
where there was less access.

202
00:13:22,761 --> 00:13:29,431
But there was no national publication
for women, owned and controlled by women.

203
00:13:30,018 --> 00:13:34,518
McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, they were
definitely male-owned and male-edited.

204
00:13:34,606 --> 00:13:37,566
We needed to start our own magazine.

205
00:13:38,777 --> 00:13:42,277
In the process of fundraising,
we went to a lot of different people.

206
00:13:42,739 --> 00:13:44,699
Steinem. S-T-E-I-N-E-M.

207
00:13:44,783 --> 00:13:49,663
But there was not a lot of faith that
a feminist magazine was needed even,

208
00:13:49,746 --> 00:13:51,576
much less that it could be successful.

209
00:13:51,665 --> 00:13:53,535
I see. All right.

210
00:13:53,625 --> 00:13:58,085
Fortunately, Clay Felker,
who was the editor of New York magazine,

211
00:13:58,172 --> 00:14:01,592
needed something special for
the year-end double issue.

212
00:14:01,675 --> 00:14:06,805
So, he published a portion of our
first issue in New York magazine.

213
00:14:09,266 --> 00:14:13,516
We put on the cover
"spring." It was January.

214
00:14:13,604 --> 00:14:17,524
We didn't want to embarrass the movement
by just lying there on the newsstands.

215
00:14:17,941 --> 00:14:22,951
[announcer] Today, a new magazine
is published, called M-S, or Ms.

216
00:14:23,030 --> 00:14:26,740
Someone called and said, "I can't
find the magazine on the newsstands."

217
00:14:26,825 --> 00:14:31,115
And I called New York, you know,
feeling it hadn't been distributed

218
00:14:31,205 --> 00:14:35,165
and discovered that actually it had
been, but it had sold out.

219
00:14:38,712 --> 00:14:41,592
It felt wonderful, like a contagion.

220
00:14:41,673 --> 00:14:47,353
It was as if we had put a note in a
bottle and sent it out into the ocean.

221
00:14:47,429 --> 00:14:52,269
[chuckles] And from all the continents
around the world, got a response.

222
00:14:52,351 --> 00:14:53,601
It was amazing.

223
00:14:57,773 --> 00:15:01,033
[woman] Dear Gloria, I was born in 1954.

224
00:15:01,109 --> 00:15:05,109
Women at that time were expected
to stay home to raise families

225
00:15:05,197 --> 00:15:06,987
and support their husbands.

226
00:15:07,074 --> 00:15:09,334
"As the oldest girl in my family of eight,

227
00:15:09,409 --> 00:15:13,159
I was responsible for helping my
mother take care of my siblings."

228
00:15:13,247 --> 00:15:16,877
This was to prepare me for my
ultimate role as wife and mother,

229
00:15:16,959 --> 00:15:19,709
since at the time,
there were no other options.

230
00:15:20,212 --> 00:15:25,842
I married at the tender age of 21 and
had two children by the time I was 25.

231
00:15:25,926 --> 00:15:30,846
"I was on a path identical to my mother's
and feeling completely hemmed in."

232
00:15:30,931 --> 00:15:34,481
I always loved chemistry, math and physics.

233
00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:36,690
And after my daughters were born,

234
00:15:36,770 --> 00:15:40,360
I realized that I could
pursue an even bigger dream:

235
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:41,940
medical school.

236
00:15:42,359 --> 00:15:46,489
When I told my husband, he expected
me to stay home with the children,

237
00:15:46,572 --> 00:15:49,372
a common theme of multiple conversations.

238
00:15:49,449 --> 00:15:53,449
I needed something to help me withstand
the constant attacks on my dreams.

239
00:15:53,537 --> 00:15:56,457
"I had been reading Ms.
magazine for several years,

240
00:15:56,540 --> 00:16:00,670
but suddenly, your words took
on a new importance in my life."

241
00:16:01,420 --> 00:16:04,460
[woman reading] In Ms.
magazine, I read stories of strong women

242
00:16:04,548 --> 00:16:07,178
fighting for more than
a life of domesticity.

243
00:16:07,718 --> 00:16:11,428
I took strength from your writing.
I no longer felt alone.

244
00:16:12,014 --> 00:16:14,934
And I knew I couldn't
give up on my aspirations.

245
00:16:15,517 --> 00:16:17,767
I stood my ground at
the cost of my marriage.

246
00:16:17,853 --> 00:16:20,903
We divorced,
but I carried on with my education,

247
00:16:20,981 --> 00:16:22,731
and I made it through medical school.

248
00:16:23,525 --> 00:16:27,275
I still have a photo of myself
studying for medical exams

249
00:16:27,362 --> 00:16:29,412
with an infant and a toddler.

250
00:16:30,157 --> 00:16:35,787
I went on to own my own practice and to do
the work I love, while raising a family.

251
00:16:35,871 --> 00:16:39,211
Each day at work,
I remember that opportunities like this

252
00:16:39,291 --> 00:16:41,711
are here because of women like you.

253
00:16:41,793 --> 00:16:46,843
Gloria, your words allowed me to claim
my voice and choose my own destiny.

254
00:16:47,216 --> 00:16:48,466
You empowered me.

255
00:16:49,426 --> 00:16:51,046
That's what a movement is.

256
00:16:51,136 --> 00:16:56,306
Just a kind of contagion of dreams
from woman to woman to woman.

257
00:16:57,893 --> 00:17:01,313
[male announcer] I humbly admit that
I was wrong when I predicted that Ms.,

258
00:17:01,396 --> 00:17:05,686
the magazine of women's liberation,
would fold after five or fewer issues.

259
00:17:06,068 --> 00:17:08,568
Issue seven is now on the stands.

260
00:17:08,654 --> 00:17:13,084
In an era when magazines founded
and led by men are dying like flies,

261
00:17:13,157 --> 00:17:15,037
Ms. has every right to feel proud.

262
00:17:15,661 --> 00:17:21,121
Our goal was to cover a lot of subjects
that other women's magazines rarely did.

263
00:17:22,166 --> 00:17:26,796
The other women's magazines were not
supposed to do controversial things

264
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:28,720
and scare off advertisers.

265
00:17:29,675 --> 00:17:33,215
It hasn't been very long since
women couldn't even get divorced

266
00:17:33,303 --> 00:17:36,063
or have an affair in the
pages of a women's magazine.

267
00:17:36,139 --> 00:17:39,889
Or swear or be poor or be black.

268
00:17:39,977 --> 00:17:41,807
There just wasn't very much truth.

269
00:17:41,895 --> 00:17:44,305
That's basically what we want this to be,

270
00:17:44,398 --> 00:17:47,188
a place where women can get
advice and tell the truth.

271
00:17:47,943 --> 00:17:53,243
In our first issue, we asked women
if they would sign a petition saying,

272
00:17:53,323 --> 00:17:56,333
"We have had abortions,
and we demand an end

273
00:17:56,410 --> 00:17:59,370
to the criminalization of this procedure

274
00:17:59,454 --> 00:18:02,794
that should be safe and
an individual choice."

275
00:18:14,636 --> 00:18:19,516
Obviously, this petition of
truth-telling was very important,

276
00:18:19,600 --> 00:18:22,730
so of course I was going
to be part of it too.

277
00:18:24,271 --> 00:18:29,281
We were flooded with letters saying,
"At last I know I'm not alone.

278
00:18:29,985 --> 00:18:32,565
Thank you so much. Here's my story."

279
00:18:32,654 --> 00:18:34,664
There was a great outpouring.

280
00:18:35,949 --> 00:18:41,659
Abortion was still completely illegal
in many states in this country

281
00:18:42,206 --> 00:18:45,746
even though it was supported in
public opinion polls by the majority.

282
00:18:45,834 --> 00:18:49,384
If men could get pregnant,
abortion would be a sacrament.

283
00:18:49,463 --> 00:18:52,133
Women were being injured and killed.

284
00:18:52,216 --> 00:18:55,136
[female protester] Free abortion on demand!

285
00:18:55,677 --> 00:19:01,427
There was a great explosion of energy
around the legalization of abortion,

286
00:19:01,517 --> 00:19:03,727
so we ran with it.

287
00:19:03,810 --> 00:19:08,150
We are here to announce our determination
to stand together and to work together

288
00:19:08,232 --> 00:19:12,652
until the right to safe, legal abortion
becomes a right recognized by law

289
00:19:12,736 --> 00:19:14,316
in every state of this country.

290
00:19:15,572 --> 00:19:18,532
We are here to make known the
unity of women behind the demand

291
00:19:18,617 --> 00:19:21,407
that abortion be a woman's right to choose.

292
00:19:21,495 --> 00:19:24,615
We will stand together to
win and to defend that right.

293
00:19:25,332 --> 00:19:29,712
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme
Court today legalized abortions.

294
00:19:29,795 --> 00:19:32,205
The majority,
in cases from Texas and Georgia,

295
00:19:32,297 --> 00:19:36,177
said that the decision to end a
pregnancy during the first three months

296
00:19:36,260 --> 00:19:39,890
belongs to the woman and her
doctor, not the government.

297
00:19:40,848 --> 00:19:44,058
[Steinem] It was an
incredible, amazing feeling.

298
00:19:44,142 --> 00:19:46,982
This was a decision that
had everything to do

299
00:19:47,062 --> 00:19:49,112
with women's health, women's whole lives.

300
00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:55,530
There's no such thing as democracy
unless we have authority,

301
00:19:55,612 --> 00:19:58,912
men and women,
over our own physical bodies.

302
00:20:02,703 --> 00:20:06,213
Dear Gloria, I was in college
when I attended the vigil

303
00:20:06,290 --> 00:20:08,830
of a woman named Savita Halappanavar.

304
00:20:09,376 --> 00:20:12,416
Savita died because of
the Eighth Amendment,

305
00:20:12,504 --> 00:20:14,724
a clause in the Irish Constitution,

306
00:20:14,798 --> 00:20:19,718
which recognized the equal right to
life of the mother and the unborn

307
00:20:20,262 --> 00:20:24,522
and resulted in abortion being
illegal in almost all circumstances.

308
00:20:25,225 --> 00:20:28,145
Thirty-one-year-old Savita
Halappanavar was rushed to hospital,

309
00:20:28,228 --> 00:20:31,768
experiencing a miscarriage,
but doctors wouldn't abort the baby.

310
00:20:31,857 --> 00:20:34,737
And Savita then died a few days later.

311
00:20:34,818 --> 00:20:39,488
Savita's death was the rallying cry
for me and so many other Irish women.

312
00:20:39,573 --> 00:20:42,583
[women chanting] Never again! Never again!

313
00:20:43,202 --> 00:20:44,292
[announcer] Now, the Irish government

314
00:20:44,369 --> 00:20:46,659
has agreed to hold a
referendum at the end of May

315
00:20:46,747 --> 00:20:50,127
on whether to reform the country's
near total ban on abortion.

316
00:20:50,209 --> 00:20:52,169
[announcer] It's basically
a yes or no question,

317
00:20:52,252 --> 00:20:57,222
whether or not voters want to
repeal the Eighth Amendment.

318
00:20:57,299 --> 00:20:58,879
I wanted to help Irish women

319
00:20:58,967 --> 00:21:02,177
and make the campaign to repeal
the Eighth Amendment visible.

320
00:21:02,262 --> 00:21:04,472
At this point, I wasn't sure how.

321
00:21:05,516 --> 00:21:07,266
After the night of Savita's vigil,

322
00:21:07,351 --> 00:21:11,901
I came across a photo of you wearing a
shirt that said, "I had an abortion."

323
00:21:11,980 --> 00:21:15,940
"That simple gesture of sharing
your own story was powerful."

324
00:21:16,026 --> 00:21:20,276
I thought to myself, "I must help,"
and this was eventually gonna be it.

325
00:21:20,364 --> 00:21:23,084
For an issue shrouded in secrecy,

326
00:21:23,158 --> 00:21:26,828
we needed a way to help start
the national conversation.

327
00:21:27,371 --> 00:21:29,211
Printing sweatshirts that said "repeal"

328
00:21:29,289 --> 00:21:32,329
was my way of speaking out
for women who couldn't.

329
00:21:32,417 --> 00:21:35,047
Within weeks, we were getting
orders not just from Ireland,

330
00:21:35,128 --> 00:21:36,758
but from all around the world.

331
00:21:39,174 --> 00:21:43,434
We raised vital funds for the
Irish abortion rights campaign.

332
00:21:45,430 --> 00:21:47,850
We were up against
insurmountable obstacles.

333
00:21:47,933 --> 00:21:51,523
Religious dogma, coupled with
the historical shaming of women

334
00:21:51,603 --> 00:21:54,313
wanting to have agency
over their own bodies.

335
00:21:54,398 --> 00:21:56,608
But this was about more than abortion.

336
00:21:56,692 --> 00:22:00,282
It was about our humanity,
our autonomy and our identity

337
00:22:00,362 --> 00:22:01,992
in the eyes of the state.

338
00:22:03,657 --> 00:22:08,577
In May of 2018, the referendum to
repeal the Eighth Amendment was held.

339
00:22:08,662 --> 00:22:15,632
"And it passed by a majority
of 66.4% of the population."

340
00:22:15,711 --> 00:22:18,421
[crowd cheering]

341
00:22:20,299 --> 00:22:22,339
[chanting] Yes! Yes! Yes!

342
00:22:22,426 --> 00:22:24,716
[announcer] Ireland has spoken
with a clear, strong voice.

343
00:22:24,803 --> 00:22:29,183
The referendum had drawn the
biggest youth vote in Irish history.

344
00:22:29,266 --> 00:22:31,266
We stood together as a nation

345
00:22:31,351 --> 00:22:34,771
and finally listened to women's
lived realities without judgment,

346
00:22:34,855 --> 00:22:37,685
just as you, Gloria, have done for decades.

347
00:22:37,774 --> 00:22:42,114
"Now, women across Ireland will no
longer have to live in the shadows."

348
00:22:42,196 --> 00:22:46,326
And have access to safe and
legal abortion in their own home.

349
00:22:46,408 --> 00:22:49,948
[chanting] Yes, we did! Yes, we did!

350
00:22:53,207 --> 00:22:58,587
Anna, I thank you for writing this because
we need inspiration in my own country.

351
00:23:00,547 --> 00:23:03,797
[announcer] Thousands of anti-abortion
demonstrators marched to the Capitol.

352
00:23:03,884 --> 00:23:07,014
They want a constitutional
amendment outlawing abortions.

353
00:23:07,095 --> 00:23:08,715
We do not negotiate.

354
00:23:08,805 --> 00:23:12,725
We tell them they must stop killing babies!

355
00:23:12,809 --> 00:23:17,309
[Steinem] When Roe v. Wade passed,
it seemed just logical and right.

356
00:23:17,397 --> 00:23:19,437
And I celebrated,

357
00:23:19,525 --> 00:23:24,445
but I didn't yet understand how
enormous the backlash would be.

358
00:23:24,530 --> 00:23:27,240
[announcer] The anti-abortion
forces are on a roll.

359
00:23:27,324 --> 00:23:33,164
Louisiana, Utah, Pennsylvania and Guam
have all passed anti-abortion laws.

360
00:23:33,247 --> 00:23:37,787
Will we vote for any politician
who opposes reproductive freedom?

361
00:23:37,876 --> 00:23:39,246
[crowd] No!

362
00:23:39,336 --> 00:23:42,376
-Will we win? -Yes!

363
00:23:42,464 --> 00:23:46,134
[chanting] Not the church, not the
state, women will decide our fate.

364
00:23:46,218 --> 00:23:49,048
[announcer] As marchers poured
down Pennsylvania Avenue,

365
00:23:49,137 --> 00:23:52,347
organizers said it was a bigger
turnout than they had hoped for.

366
00:23:52,766 --> 00:23:54,516
[Steinem] We are now the majority.

367
00:23:54,601 --> 00:24:00,071
But the people who are now in the minority
feel deprived of the old hierarchy,

368
00:24:00,148 --> 00:24:04,948
of the old male privilege or race
privilege or class privilege.

369
00:24:05,028 --> 00:24:06,948
And they're in backlash.

370
00:24:07,656 --> 00:24:10,366
[announcer] The most restrictive
abortion law in America

371
00:24:10,450 --> 00:24:12,330
was signed this week in Alabama,

372
00:24:12,411 --> 00:24:16,461
which will bar abortions,
even in the cases of rape and incest.

373
00:24:16,540 --> 00:24:18,170
[man] A lot of states have passed bills

374
00:24:18,250 --> 00:24:20,960
that also seem to be at
odds with Roe v. Wade.

375
00:24:21,044 --> 00:24:24,884
This is an effort to get the Supreme
Court to take up Roe v. Wade again.

376
00:24:24,965 --> 00:24:26,505
Maybe overturn it.

377
00:24:26,592 --> 00:24:30,552
I don't know what's gonna happen, but the
young women today definitely give me hope

378
00:24:30,637 --> 00:24:35,477
because they are fighting for their
rights and they just expect it.

379
00:24:35,559 --> 00:24:39,059
[chanting] Pro-life, that's a lie!
You don't care if women die!

380
00:24:39,146 --> 00:24:40,146
Vote no now!

381
00:24:40,230 --> 00:24:45,780
We are seeing this wave of activism
like I've never seen before in my life.

382
00:24:45,861 --> 00:24:50,281
[chanting] Come on, come on and join
the fight! Abortion is a person's right!

383
00:24:50,365 --> 00:24:53,575
I always say to young women,
"I'm so grateful to you.

384
00:24:53,660 --> 00:24:57,500
I feel like I just had to wait for
some of my friends to be born."

385
00:25:01,793 --> 00:25:04,633
Dear Gloria, I grew up in Guangzhou, China,

386
00:25:04,713 --> 00:25:07,593
where I was raised by my single
mother and my grandmother.

387
00:25:07,674 --> 00:25:12,054
Valuing boys over girls is deeply
ingrained in Chinese culture.

388
00:25:12,137 --> 00:25:16,307
In school, my teachers will tell
us that women aren't good at math

389
00:25:16,391 --> 00:25:19,141
and that girls should
be smart but also quiet.

390
00:25:19,228 --> 00:25:21,858
I didn't believe any of that was true,

391
00:25:21,939 --> 00:25:24,859
but I didn't know how to talk
about what I was experiencing.

392
00:25:25,859 --> 00:25:30,489
When I was 16, my mom and I moved
to San Francisco, California.

393
00:25:30,572 --> 00:25:33,662
In China, people rarely
talked about feminism.

394
00:25:33,742 --> 00:25:38,292
"But suddenly, I was in the middle of
a struggle to smash the patriarchy."

395
00:25:38,872 --> 00:25:41,002
[announcer] Just off the
south lawn of the White House,

396
00:25:41,083 --> 00:25:44,553
a huge crowd gathered for the
Women's March on Washington.

397
00:25:44,628 --> 00:25:48,088
We are here and around the
world for a deep democracy

398
00:25:48,173 --> 00:25:51,933
that says we will not be quiet,
we will not be controlled.

399
00:25:52,010 --> 00:25:56,520
God may be in the details,
but the goddess is in connections.

400
00:25:57,516 --> 00:26:00,096
[woman] This is when I discovered
you and your work, Gloria.

401
00:26:00,185 --> 00:26:02,895
The issues you've been
fighting for your entire life

402
00:26:02,980 --> 00:26:05,150
seem even more relevant today.

403
00:26:05,232 --> 00:26:08,742
Make sure you introduce
yourselves to each other

404
00:26:08,819 --> 00:26:12,819
and decide what we're gonna do
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

405
00:26:12,906 --> 00:26:14,526
And we're never turning back.

406
00:26:15,784 --> 00:26:18,754
You inspire me to do more
than talk about feminism,

407
00:26:18,829 --> 00:26:23,629
but to be an active part of the
movement, to assertively make history.

408
00:26:24,459 --> 00:26:27,709
I decided to start a women's
empowerment club at school.

409
00:26:27,796 --> 00:26:31,676
We not only met regularly to discuss
ways to fight for gender equality

410
00:26:31,758 --> 00:26:35,468
but would also attend women's marches
to make sure our voices were heard.

411
00:26:35,554 --> 00:26:37,184
[man chanting] Show me
what democracy looks like!

412
00:26:37,264 --> 00:26:39,564
[women chanting] This is
what democracy looks like!

413
00:26:40,350 --> 00:26:43,060
One day, I hope to bring
what I've learned from you

414
00:26:43,145 --> 00:26:45,725
and the feminist movement back to China.

415
00:26:45,814 --> 00:26:48,654
I want to open minds to
female empowerment everywhere.

416
00:26:49,610 --> 00:26:52,070
Jialin, you make it so clear.

417
00:26:52,154 --> 00:26:55,704
The women's movement is a global movement.

418
00:26:58,493 --> 00:27:02,463
People ask us golden oldies,
"Who are you passing the torch to?"

419
00:27:02,539 --> 00:27:03,669
Right?

420
00:27:03,749 --> 00:27:06,379
I'm not passing it. I'm keeping it.
Thank you very much.

421
00:27:06,460 --> 00:27:08,460
[crowd laughing]

422
00:27:09,254 --> 00:27:13,094
And I am using it to light
other people's torches.

423
00:27:15,761 --> 00:27:18,681
The future of feminism is
what you and I make it.

424
00:27:18,764 --> 00:27:20,394
We represent the majority.

425
00:27:20,474 --> 00:27:26,524
We are here, and we are not
going to give up or conform.

426
00:27:26,605 --> 00:27:30,145
Gloria, thank you for showing
me how to be courageous,

427
00:27:30,234 --> 00:27:32,494
for telling me that my voice matters.

428
00:27:32,569 --> 00:27:37,119
Without your efforts, I may not have
felt empowered to follow my dreams.

429
00:27:37,199 --> 00:27:39,699
You spoke out against the
injustices around the world.

430
00:27:39,785 --> 00:27:42,695
You inspired me and many
others to do the same.

431
00:27:43,622 --> 00:27:45,792
We all have a role to play.

432
00:27:47,167 --> 00:27:53,127
Those of us who are older can bring hope
because we remember when it was worse.

433
00:27:53,215 --> 00:27:54,835
[women chanting] My body, my choice!

434
00:27:54,925 --> 00:27:56,255
[men chanting] Their body, their choice!

435
00:27:56,343 --> 00:27:57,853
My body, my choice!

436
00:27:57,928 --> 00:27:59,848
[Steinem] Those of us who
are younger bring anger,

437
00:27:59,930 --> 00:28:03,020
which is precious because
they know it should be better.

438
00:28:04,184 --> 00:28:05,894
It's up to all of us.

439
00:28:05,978 --> 00:28:09,148
Thank you, Gloria,
for showing me the way. Anna.

440
00:28:09,731 --> 00:28:12,481
I don't know where I would
be today without you.

441
00:28:12,568 --> 00:28:14,698
Sincerely, Zelma.

442
00:28:14,778 --> 00:28:17,278
Thank you, Gloria. Jialin.

443
00:28:17,364 --> 00:28:22,454
With keen admiration and
deep appreciation. Catherine.