When Gloria Steinem Sits in Your Living Room To Talk Confidence with the Next Generation

At first you can’t believe it.

You sit, mesmerized, as you absorb the fact that Gloria Steinem is in your living room, drinking tea and chatting about soccer and hackathons.

But then you start to listen, and the shock falls away.

Because the wisdom she is exchanging with tomorrow’s leaders – young women in their teens and twenties – is all at once timely and timeless. Of the moment and evergreen.

And you notice that the next generation, now moved to the edge of their seats, looks lit from within. Passionately engaged in every facet of the conversation, they are voicing fresh perspectives, firing incisive questions of their own, listening intently to each speaker, and beaming when Gloria, who seems equally fascinated, responds with candor and wit.

This was the vision that mentors Kristen Golden and Nell Merlino had when they dreamed up the 80/20 project – where women of different ages and stages with passions in common share their wisdom, experiences, and perspectives.

Kristen Golden, Gloria Steinem and Nell Merlino

Why?

"Women have been sharing information and wisdom with each other since the dawn of time, most often with other women they are close to – in their families, neighborhoods, and communities," explains Kristen. "The 80/20 project is designed to create space for wider reaching conversations, connecting women and girls across the world."

“Kristen and I created and produced Take Our Daughters to Work Day to make girls more visible, valued and heard,” adds Nell. “The 80/20 project continues that work, bringing together the last of the analog generation and today’s digital natives to create mutual magic across generations.”

Mutual magic, indeed.

And as Gloria Steinem has been hosting intergenerational dialogues like these for decades, there was no one more perfect to lead the inaugural 80/20 talk than the icon herself. Honored to have Être invited to the table, I joined thought leader Dr. Faith Brown in facilitating what could only be described as an epic conversation.

Whose voices were in the room?

High school teens conducting interviews about bravery with peers in Newark, New Jersey.

College students traveling from Wellesley, Massachusetts to take a masterclass in feminism.

Entrepreneurs starting social media empires in New York City, and youth from Turkey, India, Canada and South Korea sending global thoughts on freedom.

What did we talk about?

Think confidence, connection and where to seek community.

What we most want to fix in the world and what sparks our joy.

Who inspires us, why mentors matter and so, so much more.

We can’t wait to share the entire conversation, along with the ongoing series of 80/20 talks that will follow.

For now, though, it is enough to say that Gloria Steinem is every bit as amazing as you imagine.

She invites girls into the conversation as easily as women welcome Être into their boardrooms. She recognizes their individuality while rallying their collective activism. And she sees with keen-eyed certainty all that is possible for them to achieve. 

Because Gloria knows that today’s youth are not in her shadow. They are at her side and on her shoulders.

And at 89 she hoists them up easily, ensuring that their vision of the future is unimpaired, long and clear.

Emma Watson quotes Gloria in her foreword to Outrageous Acts of Everyday Rebellion, saying “Sometimes we have to wait for our friends to be born.”

I am thankful to have been born in the 1960’s during Gloria's early activism, and endlessly grateful that Être girls were born in time to sit with her in my living room and come of age in her presence.

Looking forward to continued conversations with girls across the world,

Illana

ÊXTRAS: Three more books by Gloria Steinem for epic summer reading (or rereading): The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life On the Road, and Revolution From Within.

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