A Feminist Pow Wow: Lena Dunham Interviews Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem holding a protest sign (for a LIFE photoshoot) in the ‘60s. (Photo: Instagram)

In the newest edition of the Lenny Letter this morning, Lena Dunham, who will be producing a new HBO comedy called Max about second-wave feminism, interviewed “founding mother of second-wave feminism, an ally to the civil-rights movement, and a proponent of intersectional activism” Gloria Steinem. During the interview, Dunham admitted that “I feel the happiest I’ve ever been” speaking with Steinem.

Of course, the interview wouldn’t be a Dunham experience without some confessions (although we wish they were juicier).

“When was the last time you cried?” Dunham asked. “Hopefully sobbing decreases with age, because I sob way more than I think is appropriate.” Steinem admitted that she cries whenever she really gets angry—and that many men don’t understand this form of anger. “A woman who was an executive told me once that she got angry in work situations where she needed to get angry, cried, and just kept talking through it,” she told Dunham. “She had mostly men working for her, so it wasn’t so easy to be understood. And she would just say to them, ‘I am crying because I’m angry. You may think I’m sad. I am not sad. This is the way I get angry.’ And I’ve always wanted to do that. It’s still my goal.”

Lena Dunham and Gloria Steinem take a selfie. (Photo: Lenny)

Steinem reveals that the worst mistake she made before turning 21 was “trying vainly to fit in, in college.” At all women’s Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, Steinem’s entire dormitory chipped in to buy her a pair of Bermuda shorts. Steinem also told Dunham that the biggest mistake that she made after age 21 was “wasting time. That’s pretty much all there is. Or wasting time and doing what I already knew how to do.”

But Steinem, whose upcoming book My Life on the Road explores both her growth and the growth of the feminist movement, told Dunham that she has a hero of her own: abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth. “Until we’re all free, no one is free,” she quoted Truth.

Related:

8 Ways Gloria Steinem Improved Our Lives

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An Important ‘70s Feminist Documentary is Resurrected 42 Years Later [Video]