On Tuesday afternoon, light streamed through the open windows and pulled-back yellow curtains of Gloria Steinem’s Upper East Side brownstone, illuminating a yellow-walled space where women have gathered for more than half a century.
Before nearly 30 women filed into her apartment — a guest list that included the actress Lupita Nyong’o, the former professional soccer player Ashlyn Harris, the businesswoman Lauren Bush Lauren, the television personality and businesswoman Jenna Lyons and the artist and photographer Cass Bird — Ms. Steinem, 91, relaxed in her bedroom. Bookshelves reached the ceiling and a pillow on her bed read, “The power of the world always works in circles.” She was set to join a group of influential women to discuss an important topic, but first she spoke of issues of power that had managed to surprise her.
“I never expected Trump,” Ms. Steinem said. “And that we still haven’t had a female president — I would not have expected that.”
Ms. Steinem’s home feels like one that’s lived a good life, with photos and art collected over a lifetime of activism and travel. When you step outside of her bedroom, and walk down a small hall and past a blue tiled kitchenette, the living room radiates as a space where Ms. Steinem has gathered guests for nearly 60 years.
The apartment has been her anchor since the late 1960s — Ms. Steinem still remembers walking out its doors for the 1968 Democratic Convention — and being in the same place for decades feels like a stark contrast to her nomadic childhood. “My family lived in Southern Michigan in the summertime, and in the wintertime, we got in a house trailer and went to Florida or California,” she said. “I didn’t have the experience of being in the same house.”
But she fell in love with her one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a small loft space, eventually deciding to purchase the ground floor of her building and join apartments.
‘A Crucial Life-Giving Community’
At this particular gathering — a talking circle hosted by Alex Taylor, a women’s health advocate and a founder of Perelel, and Danielle Robay, a freelance journalist and podcast host — the focus was on the research funding gap in women’s health. All comments were protected by Chatham House Rule, a guideline that creates “a trusted environment to understand and resolve complex problems,” so participants felt comfortable sharing stories off-the-record. “Talking circles have always been — since people gathered around a campfire — a crucial life-giving community,” Ms. Steinem said.
Five women, including the actress Piper Perabo, settled onto Ms. Steinem’s velvet green couch, looking comfortable and at home. Gemstones — many of which came from Ms. Steinem’s late older sister and only sibling, Suzanne Steinem Patch, who was a lawyer and a gemologist — are found on tables and dressers.
As introductions began, each woman shared her name and something she wished she had known earlier about women’s health, with stories that were both personal and political. One woman revealed her miscarriage cost more than giving birth to her two children. Topics wove between misinformation, insurance challenges, menopause and convincing men that women’s health deserves attention and funding.
After introductions, the conversation unfolded with trust, familiarity and intimacy. Ms. Lyons and Ms. Bird slipped into the crowded living room, tucking under a loft space to find spots at the banquette underneath, the nearby walls plastered with a wallpapered landscape photo. “It’s heavy,” Ms. Lyons said. “I think about all the things that she’s collected over the years, where they came from and where she was in her life.”
Minutes later, Ms. Nyong’o joined, sharing a large red chair with Katie Schubert, president and chief executive of the Society for Women’s Health Research, positioned directly across from Ms. Steinem, who was sitting in her own red chair.
“I joined this world of women’s health advocacy only two months ago when I spoke up about my experience with fibroids,” said Ms. Nyong’o, who is now partnering with the Foundation for Women’s Health to fund research for uterine fibroids. “I needed to plug into women who have been in this world for a while,” she said, describing the room as a “very porous environment” where she can “feel people and exchange ideas.”
Working to ‘Experience Empathy’
For some women, the gathering represents new territory. “I’ve never really done anything like this before,” Ms. Lyons said. “I’m not an activist, per se, and I don’t necessarily get that involved in things,” she added. But the energy in the room shifted something in her. “It’s nice to sit here and think that there’s something that can be done,” she said. “To be a part of it is really inspiring.”
The sentiment built as the conversation continued. “Hopeful is a weird, wonky word for me, and I think it’s misused a lot,” said Ms. Harris, a two-time World Cup champion. “But I will say, there’s a reason we’re all in this room.” She added, “We’ve been standing on the shoulders of other women. We should be energized right now.”
Gathering in person remains central to Ms. Steinem’s philosophy. “My brain has not converted to A.I.,” she joked. “We don’t experience empathy in the same way unless we are physically together,” she added, sharing that we produce oxytocin when we connect in person.
The food — a selection of sandwiches, salads and cookies from Maman — sat untouched on a small table beside the banquette throughout the conversation. Only after the formal discussion ended and a group photo was taken did a few women migrate toward the table.
The afternoon’s final moments revealed the power of in-person connection. Ms. Nyong’o and Ms. Lyons discussed Ms. Nyong’o’s role as Viola in Shakespeare in the Park’s production of “Twelfth Night,” which she will conclude on Sunday. Christina Carrica Haley, a brand strategist from Los Angeles, and Josephine Torrente, a lawyer from Washington who focuses on drug and biological therapies, discussed the gathering.
“We don’t need to be in Birkenstocks and T-shirts to make a change,” Ms. Carrica Haley joked.
Ms. Torrente noted that today, more than half of her firm’s partners are women. “They’re in meetings being emotional, and they’re being effective,” she said. “They’re teaching a new way.”
Before heading out, women lined up for photos with Ms. Steinem, who sat in her red chair with a leopard print pillow, poised with a smile on her face. Ms. Bird, the artist and photographer, who wore her hair in two braided pigtails, approached Ms. Steinem, introducing herself. Ms. Steinem reached out to stroke one of Ms. Bird’s braids — a small, tender gesture.
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