G-L-O-R-I-A
2/22/19 - We sit down with feminist icon, author, and activist, Gloria Steinem to talk about some the defining friendships of her life. Plus, where our views diverge, particularly around sex work and pornography.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (2018 edition) by Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem on her friend Wilma Mankiller
Gloria is reading:
The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault
TRANSCRIPT: G-L-O-R-I-A
[Ads]
(0:55)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. I talked to Gloria Steinem this week!
Aminatou: Who?
Ann: G-L-O-R-I-A Gloria Steinem. [Laughs]
[Theme Song]
(1:42)
Aminatou: Hello girl!
Ann: Hi, hi, hi. How you doing?
Aminatou: You know I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited about today's episode.
Ann: I love when we start episodes just being like "We're excited" as if we're not excited every week. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Listen, some weeks I'm not as excited as I am this week. It's okay to be upfront about that. Mostly I'm excited this week because you did all the work. [Laughs] So truly that's actually what I'm excited about. I did almost nothing and this is great.
Ann: You know what? That is the true secret to our success. I feel like when people are like "What's it like working with a friend?" or whatever I'm like you know what? The best thing is that it's kind of like going away for the weekend with a group of all really capable women where you look up and you're like oh, the kitchen's just clean. I wonder who did that? Sometimes it's like oh, Amina got us this sponsorship. Oh, Gina upgraded our gear. Oh, shit is just happening. [Laughs]
(2:38)
Aminatou: Right. The podcast has podcasted and I didn't do anything about it. It's the best. It's that observation Gina made when we were on tour about how we were all the people in high school who we would do the entire group project and now we work together.
Ann: 100%. Forever only working with the people who are doing the most on the group project. [Laughs]
Aminatou: That's right. So you did the group project this week. Tell us about it.
Ann: With a major assist from Gina, but yeah, I talked to Gloria Steinem this week.
Aminatou: Who?
Ann: G-L-O-R-I-A Gloria Steinem. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Oh my god, is she a model? Who's Gloria? One name?
Ann: I have to say an interesting kind of media-elevated icon of the second wave who is also an incredibly important writer/activist in her own right is how I would describe Gloria Steinem. And also someone who . . .
Aminatou: Right. And I need no one to take my "who?" as a shade. I love Gloria Steinem, okay? I just need everyone to know who Gloria Steinem is.
Ann: Yeah, and I think . . . well on a personal level she was very important for me early in my feminist development because she started her career as a journalist and had a little bit of a slow transition from being like oh, I'm conceptualizing myself as a writer who's documenting this stuff to hey, I am fully in this fight as an activist who's trying to make change. And she never stops using the power of words to that end. But I don't know, I very much identify with like let me say her skill set and where she's coming from professionally. So that's one thing I've always loved about her. When I say that name to you what comes to mind for you?
(4:20)
Aminatou: You know, iconic partnerships. I will say that.
Ann: Totally.
Aminatou: Gloria plus all of her -- the women in her life, just like iconic kind of imagery and relationships. And she's been really good about chronicling that. I think, yeah, the thing you pointed out about her being a journalist is so important, and a writer. We were all baby feminists in college. Gloria Steinem is somebody who she comes up a lot when you're studying feminist praxis. And the thing that has always been really interesting to me is that if Gloria Steinem is the only feminist that you know you have a ton of work to do, you know? Because she's very visible in this way. Which is very exciting. It's exciting that she is visible. I went to see the play that's named after her last month and I fully cried at the play. And also realizing that there are structural reasons that she is the most visible person of her era. 1) She's definitely alive so that's amazing but also she was a beautiful white woman.
And a thing that I have always appreciated about Gloria Steinem's work is she is always the first person to point that out. And she has done so much work to talk about the ways that everybody can acknowledge their privilege in movement and can really use their privilege to do something. And so when I think about some of the kind of interracial or inter-generational friendships she's been in I think of her as somebody who does do the work even when I don't agree with her. There are so many positions she has that I don't agree with. I really appreciate that she's very visible and she's really vocal. And the interracial friendships are one thing but Gloria Steinem is somebody who really elevates younger women and is such a promoter of bonds between younger and older women in a way that for me has been like -- you know, it's just been 1) very healing and 2) has just taught me a lot. So I love that we can live amongst feminist icons.
(6:10)
Ann: Yeah. And I think that to that point of younger feminists too she is definitely a feminist of a different generation who has always said that part of the point of doing this work is for future generations frankly to forget, right? To sort of say like okay, we're starting from a different place. Not that it's amazing to be not aware of history but it is really powerful to be focused on the future. And that's something that I think I really aspire to be and to do, to always be paying a lot of attention to generationally who is coming up behind me? That's a real modeling that she does. And I think that your point too about friendships is well-taken. I mean I actually think that it's almost to the detriment of the clarity of her writing. She is always going out of her way to cite where she learned things and as we have discussed citation is feminist memory. It's feminist practice. So all of these things are things I was excited to talk to her about including what it was like to be friends with some of these other iconic women who we never got the chance to interview who were some of her best friends in life.
[Interview Starts]
Ann: Gloria Steinem, thank you so much for being on the show.
Gloria: Oh thank you.
Ann: One thing we talk about all the time on Call Your Girlfriend is friendship. Our friendship is at the center of it. And I'm wondering how friendship has been a site of political activism in your life.
Gloria: It's been entirely the site really because a movement is really a group of friends who however diverse and crazily different you may be have some of the same hopes and dreams and, you know . . . and it becomes a chosen family. So whether it was Ms. Magazine which was a smaller chosen family or, you know, much larger movement events it really all starts with a circle of people who however bizarrely different we are tell our stories and that allows other people to tell their stories and we see what's shared and we go from there.
(8:15)
Ann: Right. Yeah, and we also think of you as someone who has had some iconic interracial friendship. We like to think of ourselves as having an iconic interracial friendship.
Gloria: [Laughs]
Ann: I know Amina is not here. She is sad she couldn't meet you. One thing that we think about related to those friendships sometimes is what is conscientious where you're thinking look, it is important for people of many different races to be in platonically intimate, loving partnerships with each other and I'm going to make that a goal and effort in my life versus just what feels effortless and we connect in friends. And wondering for you in some of the important interracial friendships in your life which of those has felt more true or if they've both felt true at different times maybe?
Gloria: Well especially given the length of time I've been alive in which it wasn't always the case that people were consciously looking for interracial friendships most of my friendships have happened because of shared interests and projects and also a certain amount of luck I think on my part because I happened not to go to school very much. I mean I sort of didn't quite get the degree of difference that I would have got if I'd grown up in a different way.
Ann: Hmm.
Gloria: So it might've been a little easier for shared interests to take over. And that's quite accidental just depending on how we grew up.
Ann: Right. Can you think of a time when it maybe was a point of difficulty? Or there was a moment in your friendship where . . . I mean I have this all the time with my friends of different races where I just don't clock something as racial, or if there's something I completely miss because of that difference between us.
(9:55)
Gloria: Yes, I think it's a great learning process. We do not learn from sameness; we learn from difference. So that alone is motive enough. [Laughs] And I absolutely learn, for instance recently because I'm working with two friends on a book, the three of us, two black women and me, I realize just from being present and listening and plotting and writing that there are large ways in which black women feel and are not visible at all. And that is shocking and a big learning experience for me.
For instance one of them was describing an experience in which there were people being elected to represent women and the ones who were elected from the auditorium were coming to sit onstage and they happened to all be women of color at that stage of the election. And a young man, a perfectly okay young white man got up and said "But shouldn't we have someone to represent women?"
Ann: Wow.
Gloria: Right. You know, it is quite amazing. And of course you see the degree to which the press and history books treat the women's movement as if it were a totally white or almost totally white movement when in fact it was way disproportionately women of color from the beginning. We at Miss Magazine did the first -- or printed anyway the first national poll of women's opinions on women's issues in terms of who was in favor of what was then called the Women's Liberation Movement and all the basic issues. And it was more than 60% of black women and only a little more than 30% of white women.
So, you know, it's always been disproportionately women of color for obvious reasons because white women were more likely to be dependent on their husband's income and identity and feel devoted to that understandably. And black women were much less likely to do that.
Ann: Right.
(11:58)
Gloria: And the results of the last elections should certainly have educated people, you know? In terms of who voted for Hillary and who didn't. 51% of white women voted for Trump.
Ann: Right, and which women still have some work to do among their peers, at least racially speaking. Yeah.
Gloria: Yeah. So the frustrating thing for me is how different reality is from the image of -- and the Civil Rights Movement, because black women were not properly credited in the Civil Rights Movement.
Ann: Right. And I mean I have to imagine that's particularly loaded for you just given the way popular media of previous decades has really kind of made you a feminist name brand, and like I hear you say all the time like "Hello, this is who was there. Hello, let me list all the names of the people who were in the room when this thing happened or that thing happened." and I have to imagine that was also pretty difficult to be the record corrector in real-time.
Gloria: Well it was kind of fun. [Laughs]
Ann: Was it?
Gloria: But I don't know, I mean it's the situation itself and it's fun to be saying the new thing but it's frustrating to realize that you've said it 900 times right? It is hard sometimes. But if we just make general rules for ourselves in the present and try to think not too much about the past or the future it's okay. So if you just say to yourself okay, I'm never turning up in a photograph that's totally white women or I'm never doing a program or whatever, you know? And I'm going to try to remember if I have more power in some way than the people I'm with, that I remember to listen as much as I talk. And I ask them to talk as much as they listen which is sometimes very hard. You know, the commonsensical things as you go keeps you sane.
(13:52)
Ann: Are those things that you had to develop over time? This awareness of your own power or maybe these small decisions you want to make related to it, is that something that felt baked in from the start or felt natural?
Gloria: Well I'm not sure I've been so great at it so it probably wasn't baked in at the start. But things helped. You know, as I was saying, like not going to school, not getting the degree of brainwashing maybe just by accident. And then as soon as I graduated from college I went to live in India for two years and when I came back, I mean not that India doesn't have all kinds of caste issues and so on -- it does -- but nonetheless I'd grown used to seeing a rainbow of people. And when I came back I realized that, you know, I was living in a white ghetto and I kind of got mad on my own behalf. How dare they tell me who my friends are?
Ann: Yeah, they being whatever social . . .
Gloria: The society, yeah. No, just segregation. Right. And I had also, just by accident, just because I needed a job, a couple summer jobs when I was in college where I was the only white person. And that was a good experience too. Being the only is, you know, a good empathy producing experience.
Ann: Right. One thing we also talk a lot about on the podcast is not just the way that the personal is political but the way that we kind of bring the political into our personal lives and choices. And how hard that can be sometimes. I mean yes we have lofty feminist beliefs but then we have to choose where to shop and who to love and how to love them and where to live and all these things. I'm wondering if there's an example from your own life where it has been hard for you to reconcile your beliefs with some of the choices you're making day-to-day?
Gloria: Well I live in a totally white neighborhood. You know, and that's -- there used to be at least two consulates from African countries across the street. Even they are gone now. So I'm very aware of the segregation of the city. You know, as soon as you get on the subway or something it may be different but the fact is that I do not have any neighbors of color.
Ann: Right.
(16:00)
Gloria: So I'm also very aware since I have a ton of house guests and I love that, you know, and I've left my house so after my death I can still have a ton of house guests, I've realized that some of my house guests are going to be perceived as a housekeeper by my neighbors.
Ann: Wow.
Gloria: And that's painful.
Ann: So do you think about ways that it's possible to intervene in that? Or does it feel bigger than you or what you're able to change? Because that's where I come down. A lot of these issues where I'm like yeah, I feel bad but we're all in this long game together and it's not going to get solved next week. That kind of thing.
Gloria: I can't solve it but I try to say to the neighbors that I happen to see "Listen, there's this great woman coming from Kenya and she's this great leader there." You know, I try to build little bridges.
Ann: Obviously there are many, many things that precede me and Amina and many of our podcast listeners in terms of feminist history, things that you have lived through. And I know you've cautioned against perceiving feminist history as what was in the newspaper headlines because maybe even at the time that was not what was really going on. And I'm wondering if there's something that leaps to mind for you that you've found younger women are particularly clueless about when it comes to knowing recent feminist history of the past few decades?
Gloria: Well I wouldn't say clueless because it doesn't -- in some ways it doesn't matter. We're going to do what we're going to do anyway in the present. But I do think that the role of us older folks is to supply hope because we remember when it was so much worse. And the role of younger people is often to supply anger which the situation totally deserves. And I think we play that role, you know, because we're looking at the age of Trump. I can say okay, it's a disaster and dangerous but it's also true that we're a majority in the public opinion polls and on issues for the first time when we used to be like a third or something. It's one of the reasons why it's very important I think for people to organize across age as well as across every other difference.
(18:30)
Ann: Yeah, and one thing that we're really not so great about. For example when I think about who our guests on this podcast have been I think you might be our only guest in her 80s for example, you know? And it is a way we are extremely siloed. It's interesting though because when I read your work, things published in the '80s to now, there are really very few points on which I feel like we are far apart generationally. There are a few. There are a few that really stand out.
Gloria: So tell me what are the ones that stand out?
Ann: Well it's interesting. So re-reading Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions one thing I think I notice is that right now at least among my peers talking about trans issues is really much more in the fore. And I think that that has some implications for how we talk about gender and how we view the gender binary. One also having to do with sex work and how that's framed, and pornography. Two very separate things but I think it's possible to speak generationally. But those are a few points where I do feel like when I read it oh, whoa, that does not line up with how I sort of see this. Yeah.
Gloria: No, and I was just thinking because I thought -- and I still think, it's so useful and helpful -- to differentiate between pornography and erotica. Not that you're going to outlaw anything. You're not going to outlaw anything. But porne means female slaves in Greek and eros means love and has a connotation of free choice. And you kind of know when you're looking at something whether this is about power or really about mutuality. And it caught on not at all. [Laughter]
(20:10)
Ann: It is true. The word erotica is very generational. Yeah, I don't . . .
Gloria: No, but I still -- I'm hanging in there.
Ann: Good for you.
Gloria: I think it's very, very, very useful.
Ann: Yeah.
Gloria: Because to let pornography take over sex when the content is so rarely mutual and so often about pain and degradation and power and not about shared pleasure or any kind of . . . you know, that's not a good idea. [Laughs]
Ann: Sure. And maybe it's also this question of words which is something you've written about so much too, the words we use, because I don't think that . . . I don't know any people who I would kind of consider my generational feminist peers who would say all pornography is amazing and uplifting and feminist and wonderful. I think it's more about definitionally the distinction would be between different types of pornography as opposed to erotica versus . . . you know, maybe this is a question of words which is really interesting.
Gloria: So how would you distinguish between violent misogyny as pornography and mutual . . .
Ann: I would say some pornography is violently misogynistic and other pornography is not and does seem to be more based in, you know, what is depicted at least as mutual pleasure. You know . . .
Gloria: So maybe we could substitute mutual pornography? I don't know. Because it does drive me crazy that PornHub . . .
Ann: Yeah.
Gloria: You know, is such a huge commercial enterprise. And that the people used in pornography are so often not there from their free will and they started at 12 as . . . I mean it's just it's not great to look at, right? To delve into.
(21:55)
Ann: Right. Well and I think some of it is about a distinction of language and I think the same thing with sex work that I mentioned. Like that's another one of those points where . . .
Gloria: But that's not complete either. The thing is -- here's what . . . I used to say sex work. I think I wrote about this. And then I went to Nevada because the welfare rights groups that were marching, because women were being . . . because that is the one state where prostitution is legal. So they were being forced into prostitution because otherwise they would lose their unemployment and welfare benefits because it was called work like any other. So I think we can call ourselves or our friends anything we want but in terms of social policy if you make it work like any other then if you refuse to do it you can lose your benefits. And that's happened in Germany and other places.
Ann: Yeah, and I think it's difficult too because a lot of times the attitude -- that attitude, and I'm not saying this is your point-of-view -- goes hand-in-hand with making life more difficult for women who do make their living that way, you know?
Gloria: No, I think we all . . . I can just speak for myself.
Ann: Sure, sure, sure.
Gloria: Everyone wants to decriminalize the prostituted people, you know? So they don't have any criminal liability whatsoever. Right.
Ann: Yeah.
Gloria: It's mainly about people who sell other people.
Ann: 100%. But I think sometimes -- I guess what I'm trying to say is I think sometimes that point-of-view is used to endorse legislation like SESTA and FOSTA which just passed last year which essentially makes it more difficult for -- sex workers would say it makes it more difficult to stay safe in their . . .
Gloria: But that's -- I mean in the age of the Internet there are a lot of . . . even I get infinite numbers of offers of Russian brides, you know?
Ann: You do?
Gloria: Yes. [Laughs]
Ann: Wow.
(23:50)
Gloria: No, really, I don't know why they are emailing me constantly.
Ann: Do you have an AOL email address? Is this what's going on?
Gloria: I'm not telling.
Ann: Okay. [Laughter]
Gloria: But I think the main problem here that we have is the world is divided into two kinds of people, those who divide everything into two and those who don't. Okay. [Laughs]
Ann: Sure.
Gloria: It's similar here because people think there's criminalization and legalization when what works is in-between. Right.
Ann: I do go back to this idea, and you are really one of my favorite writers on this topic, of both the power of words and the way we need to be able to speak things sometimes in order to actually change them. And then also the limitations frankly. And I think that what you just said about the two types of people, two types of people . . .
Gloria: Well that's the problem with gender.
Ann: The problem with gender. [Laughs]
Gloria: Yeah, because old cultures did not have gender. I mean I don't mean to overgeneralize but the ones I know anyway didn't have gendered pronouns. They didn't have he and she. There wasn't the idea of gender. That all came about with patriarchy and other bullshit, okay? So that also is a false division into two.
Ann: Right.
[Music and Ads]
(29:13)
Ann: So there's a few questions we ask everyone who comes on the show and one of them has to do with your core people. Who are the people who you are like in weekly/daily touch with who really are your team?
Gloria: Hmm. Well Amy Richards. Do you know Amy?
Ann: Not personally.
Gloria: Right. Well she came into my life when she was a college student and I would say she's the biggest blessing of my life because we've worked together now for decades and she's way smarter than I am, way better at putting things together from different realms and so on, and I hope I've been useful to her. So that's right up there.
Ann: Do you call her when you have a bad day? That kind of level of friends?
Gloria: Well no, she calls to tell me that I had a bad day. [Laughter] She's way smarter.
(30:10)
Ann: Sometimes friends are useful for that too.
Gloria: Right, right.
Ann: Like did you notice that you're really upset right now? I need that, yeah.
Gloria: Right, right. Then there are people who I work with like my lecture partners like Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Flo Kennedy. You know, and Dorothy is still with us. I'm sorry to say Flo is not.
Ann: We're Flo fan girls. We know.
Gloria: Yeah. Right. And she's going to have Flo -- there's a play about her that's coming.
Ann: Really?
Gloria: Yeah, it's so interesting because the play about her is going to follow mine in New York and that is exactly what we used to do as speakers because I had to come before her because afterwards I was such an anticlimax. [Laughs] So it's worked out in the same way.
Ann: I love it. Do you remember the first time you met her?
Gloria: Yeah, I think so. I think it was in demonstrations. You know, because she was just this wild, wonderful, smart lawyer. I mean she would just -- and such a great friend. And then there's Alice Walker and Suzanne Levine who was the editor of Ms. Magazine when people thought I was the editor, she was the editor. [Laughs] So it comes from sharing hopes and values and work and humor and, you know, definitely they are my family, my chosen family.
Ann: Oh, I love that. [Laughs] We use that. We use that term a lot too.
Gina: Okay, this is Gina busting in real quick to say that in addition to her friendship with Florence Kennedy, Ann, Aminatou and I have always been obsessed with the long-time friendship of Gloria Steinem and her now-deceased friend Wilma Mankiller who was the principle chief of the Cherokee nation and we got a chance to ask her about that after the main part of our recording ended.
(32:00)
Ann: In our live show we tour with a live version of the podcast sometimes and we have a segment called Great Besties in Herstory where we talk about iconic pairs of mostly women and you and Wilma are on that series of iconic besties. I had heard you refer to her as chosen family in the past and I think one reason why we highlight that story is just because of that friend to the end quality and the way that it always has seemed to me you really did play that more traditional nuclear family kind of role for each other. And I was wondering if you could talk about that friendship a little bit and what she meant to you?
Gloria: Well Wilma meant so much to me as a friend and a family member and just infinite trust and humor and adventures together and all of that. But also she and a few other people but mainly Wilma were my glimpse into the fact that what we want as feminists of all descriptions including men trying to do away with the roles once was here. I did not really know that until I absorbed it fully from Wilma. Because there are, as far as I know, many Native languages that don't have he and she. The whole idea of gender comes from controlling reproduction and therefore controlling women. It's relatively new in human history. It only arrived with Columbus, you know, who said how wonderful everyone was who greeted him and gave him gifts then killed people, you know? And couldn't understand why when he took sex slaves for his crew they objected. I mean it was the advent of patriarchy.
(33:50)
So it helped me a lot to learn from her and of course she was re-learning herself because a lot of Native American culture has been systematically wiped out by schooling and churches and so on. But she knew clearly that this had been the way of life in the past. So I got from her okay, it's not against human nature like they're telling us. [Laughs] You know, it's not inevitable to have roles and race. They didn't have a word for race either. The paradigm of society doesn't have to be a pyramid; it can be a circle. We can be linked, not ranked. I got that from her in addition to just loving to be with her, you know? And having a good time together. Oddly she loved to gamble. [Laughs] And to dance.
Ann: Wait, did you go gamble with her? Like you and Wilma went to play the slots?
Gloria: No, I was -- she knew how to gamble. I don't. So I'm there at the slots but she's doing much more sophisticated things. [Laughs]
Ann: You're just pulling the lever.
Gloria: Yeah, right, right.
Ann: That trip to Vegas. I want to go. What have you read lately that you can't stop thinking about or talking about?
Gloria: Oh, that's so interesting. Well actually I'm right this moment in my suitcase I'm reading a book about black suffragists because in the same way that our history is not so great now the history of the suffrage movement is not so great. And also I'm reading another book that's called The Myth of Seneca Falls because it turns out that 15 years before Seneca Falls there was as you probably know this massive meeting in New York of hundreds of black and white suffragists which arguably might be called, not that there's a hierarchy of meetings, but it did precede by 15 years and had a lot more people. And there was such outrage at this massive group of black and white women voting together they burned the hall down. So maybe . . . [Laughs]
(36:05)
Ann: Friendship is political. Yeah, yeah.
Gloria: Right. So right now because I'm not a history person or a scholar I'm just kind of uncovering things in history that I'm mad that are not included now. Does that make sense?
Ann: 100%. I have that experience all the time when I read history. I'm angry at what I wasn't taught. Yeah.
Gloria: Well that's why I love the thing that's in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington which is there are two things: history and the past, and they are not the same.
Ann: Last question: what are your favorite snacks?
Gloria: Oh, well ice cream was my all-time favorite for years and years and years then I lost the ability to really do well with lactose.
Ann: Wait, can I get a brand or a flavor?
Gloria: Well all the Haagen-Dazs. I mean there really is no bad ice cream. [Laughter]
Ann: True.
Gloria: So I've had to give up ice cream but I am still hooked on sugar.
Ann: What is the current non-lactose heavy sugar snack that you love?
Gloria: Oh, anything. Muffins, cookies, cakes, chocolate. Anything. I mean the whole idea that -- I mean I read Sugar Blues, a great book about how bad sugar is for you, and it's kind of a single factor analysis of history and how the plague came about because refined sugar had undone our immune system. And it had no impact on me whatsoever. [Laughter] I'm still hooked on sugar.
Ann: Just craving it all the more after reading about it? Yeah. All right, well I feel like that's a great -- everyone's on their own journey. That is a great place to end. Thank you so much for doing this.
Gloria: No, thank you and thank you for doing what you're doing. I'm sure you're a lifeline for all kinds of people listening. Thank you.
[Interview Ends]
(38:05)
Aminatou: Gloria! Ugh, the best. The absolute best.
Ann: Ugh, yeah. And I do keep thinking about the thing that you said earlier about not agreeing with 100% of her positions and I think one thing that is good to practice is sort of saying like okay, we talk to a lot of people on this show for various reasons. We respect them for various reasons. And that does not always mean we are 100% down the line aligned with everything that they say. A lot of good can come from the kind of inter-generational dialogue that does not always mean perfect alignment in terms of your beliefs. So anyway . . .
Aminatou: Absolutely, you know what I mean? It's like we don't have to agree with everybody but your point about feminist memory earlier is also very well-taken. The reason that we can do this podcast is because of a lot of women like Gloria Steinem.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: That's not lost on me and I think that that is something we can celebrate and should celebrate and also push your icons to do better and to think better and to be different. Life is both long and short and I'm just so appreciative that we get to live in a world that she has shaped.
Ann: Ugh. And hey, thanks for being my partner in a feminist friendship. I also just feel that very profoundly.
Aminatou: This is a feminist friendship? [Laughter] Excuse me, I don't do labels.
Ann: I really honestly don't even know what to do with you right now. I'm burning our book contact.
Aminatou: Ann I love that we are in an iconic feminist friendship. Maybe a thousand years from now some babies will be like "What was a podcast?" and will unearth our story. It is really fun to be friends with someone who you are also trying to dismantle capitalism and patriarchy with so thanks for being my friend.
Ann: Aww! Sorry I'm feeling feelings. Okay, I'm just going to say see you on the Internet.
Aminatou: See you on the Internet! See you on the front lines! See you in the feminist friendships! And to all the listeners out there if you have a friend that you've been doing feminism with for a long time you should call them and remind them why you do this and be really good to each other.
Ann: And thank them.
Aminatou: Yeah, thank them and be really good to each other. It's hard but it's also fun and it's fun to fuck shit up.
Ann: [Laughs] See you in the trenches.
Aminatou: Bye boo-boo! You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.