AI Summary
5 min readGloria Steinem was 22 years old in London, working as a waitress while waiting for a visa to India, when she realized she was pregnant. She had no idea what to do. She believed the mythology of the era—that she could throw herself down stairs or ride violently in Central Park and somehow end the pregnancy. In desperation, she opened the London equivalent of the yellow pages and picked a doctor at random. That doctor, Dr. John Sharp, performed the abortion at a time when it was illegal in England except for health reasons. He made her promise two things: never to tell his name, and to do what she wanted with her life. She kept both promises. That moment, she said, gave her a future she could not have imagined otherwise.
The gift of not planning
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What you'll learn
- 1 Main Outline
- 2 (00:07) **Why In-Person Connection Matters** - Steinem explains that being physically present with others creates something that print cannot replicate, a lesson she learned from being forced to speak for the movement.
- 3 (03:09) **The Doctor Who Changed Everything** - Steinem recounts seeking an illegal abortion in London at age 22, finding a compassionate doctor who performed the procedure and extracted two promises: never reveal his name, and do what you want with your life.
- 4 (06:59) **Why the Outside World Felt Safer** - Steinem reveals that her childhood home felt more dangerous than the world beyond, which shaped her willingness to take risks and travel.
- 5 (08:48) **India's Transformative Effect** - Steinem describes how her two years in India after the abortion opened her eyes to different ways of living and sparked her writing career.
- 6 (15:45) **The Birth of a Public Voice** - Steinem explains how she overcame her terror of public speaking by partnering with Dorothy Pittman Hughes, a Black activist, to speak about the women's movement.
- 7 (19:55) **Facing the Media's Distortion** - A vintage news clip plays in which Steinem is called "aggressive," "pushy," and "the Shirley Temple of the New Left," and she reflects on the double standard of anger.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Rest in peace to writer and activist Gloria Steinem.
The trajectory of Steinem’s life and work was unparalleled. Her cultural and political impact, incalculable. We sat to discuss the life-altering procedure she had completed at age 22, why she helped create the women's liberation movement alongside Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Flo Kennedy, and how she learned to become angry—on her own behalf—about race and gender bias throughout America.
Original air date: December 15, 2019
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