What It Was Like to Know Gloria Steinem

I was a 33-year-old organizer when I first met Gloria Steinem in 2007. Despite being a women’s studies major in college, I had not fully grasped Gloria’s role in supporting grassroots women's organizations. Foundation for Women to do just that, to fund and amplify women’s organizing, like the work I was doing with domestic workers in New York.

Meeting her at their annual fundraising gala, I was moved by how kind, warm, and genuinely excited she was to learn about and support our efforts. Reed founded the Household Technicians of America in 1971. Her organizing, along with the work of Dorothy Bolden and the National Domestic Workers Union in the South, catalyzed the inclusion of domestic workers in federal minimum wage laws after 40 years of exclusion from Roosevelt’s New Deal.

I had never heard of Carolyn Reed or Dorothy Bolden. None of my women’s history classes had taught me about these two Black women who helped pave the way before me. Reed well; she frequently enlisted Gloria in domestic workers’ efforts to gain respect and recognition as professionals.

At the time, together with organizers from around the country, I was planning what would become the founding meeting of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Gloria’s prompt helped us find our roots in the legacy of Black domestic workers organizing and leadership throughout the country, whose bravery has made our economy better for women generation after generation, a legacy our organization was founded to carry forward. She recognized value and power where others didn’t.

She corrected the omissions that kept us from finding one another. A year after we met, I reached out to Gloria to let her know that we were at an important point in our efforts to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York State, the first comprehensive state-level legislation to extend labor rights to domestic workers, including new protections such as paid leave. We were planning a 24-hour vigil in front of the governor’s office.

We communicated by email; she formatted her emails like letters, with all the accompanying formalities and indentations. We were five years into our campaign. Dozens of domestic workers had taken time away from work and sacrificed their wages to hold vigil.