Episode 25: Gloria Steinem (Author, Founder & Editor: Ms. Magazine, more)

This episode is about a girl from East Toledo, Ohio.

A girl who taught herself to read by devouring comic books, horse stories, and Louisa May Alcott. A girl who didn’t set foot in a school until she was 14.

A young woman who went to India for two years to avoid getting married—to anyone. A young woman who was described by one Esquire editor as the only writer he knew who could make sex boring.

A woman who has never, ever, worked for a paycheck—who made up and launched her own idea for a column in New York magazine. (It kind of still exists.)

A woman who, while on assignment, was kicked out of the lobby of the Plaza Hotel because “she must have been a hooker.” Because all unescorted women who hung out in hotel lobbies in the 1960s must be sex workers, right?

A woman who describes herself as a “hope-aholic.”

This episode is about Gloria Steinem, the woman who created Ms. magazine—and started a revolution.

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Our editor-at-large George Gendron caught up with Steinem on the occasion of the magazine’s 50th anniversary.