INSPIRATION: Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and author of a host of bestselling books and popular featured magazine columns. Ms. Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956 and was influenced by Gandhian activism during her two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship.

Steinem helped to found the Women’s Action Alliance, a pioneering initiative in nonsexist, multiracial education, and the National Women’s Political Caucus, which advances pro-equality women for elected and appointed office. She is the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund empowering women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

In addition to a multitude Journalism awards and accolades, Steinem has also received Parenting magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her work promoting girls’ self-esteem, The Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award and in 2013, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Listed by Biography magazine as one of the 25 most influential women in America, Steinem has been a force for inspiring hope and instigating action on issues of equality, peace and justice.

Check out the new biopic “The Glorias” for a unique look at Steinem’s life:

ACTION: 3 Steps To Challenge The Status Quo & Make Change Happen

❶ #ChooseToChallenge
Recognize that how things are is not how they must continue. Step outside the status quo and make visible the things that can, must and will change, even if it’s not easy going through it.
• In the toughest of times, with the greatest of challenges, remember: TODAY ≠ TOMORROW -set your compass to where you WANT things to be and follow it forward.

❷ Learn To Unlearn
Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Unlearning is not forgetting, it’s letting go of mental habits, attitudes and biases that no longer serve us. “Unlearning” our current mindset frees us to choose a different one that can better achieve the change we are pursuing.

❸ Forge Forward
Long before “Just Do It” was a thing, Steinem forged ahead in the face of great push-back to be the change she sought.
• In Steinem’s words: “Go too far, or you’re not going far enough.” So get started, keep going and never, ever give up.
 

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.
– Gloria Steinem