For 35 years my Momma has summoned her strength to support me through all of life’s chaotic and challenging moments. She taught me strength, perseverance, and how to move through life’s fragile chapters with courage. She taught me my people-pleasing era is over. That sometimes you have to be “selfish” to protect your peace, preserve your mental stability, and stand firm in who you are.
She shaped me into a fierce lioness: resilient, protective, and unafraid to claim my space. Focused and locked in. Going after everything that I deserve.
So please, don’t tell me happy birthday. Thank my Momma for giving me life. Because without her, there is no me. My birthday will always be dedicated to you Mommy. I love you.
Happy 36th birthday to my big sister! Who has literally always had my back! My role model, my example, my forever inspiration. I love you more than words can hold, and I’m endlessly grateful for the strength, grace, and wisdom you lead with every day. Thank you for loving me when I didn’t know how to love myself. Thank you for loving me through the mental instability and my most fragile moments.
As you step into this new chapter, I hope it meets you with reward, fulfillment, and deep, well-earned peace. You’ve always carried us (myself, Daytwon, Feliciti and Quincy) with love, and you’ll always be our Momma’s first love. You are steadfast, cherished, and unforgettable. I love you.
Remembering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist trailblazer who faced gender discrimination as she pursued her academic goals, fearlessly advocated for women’s rights, and inspired generations of women to break gender barriers, on what would have been her 92nd birthday. Ginsburg made history as the second woman—and first Jewish woman—to serve on the SCOTUS.
Your character, Olivia Benson, has stolen hearts and withstood the test of time for 26 years (26 seasons). Whether onscreen or offscreen, your vulnerability and advocacy for sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse are truly unmatched and necessary. Thank you for advancing the women’s movement and the quality of life for all, one episode at a time!
We are all beyond grateful for your service to television and through your foundation, Joyful Heart.
May this new chapter be filled with all of the compassion, fulfillment, and love that you give to those both near and far.
I’ll never forget, in 2016, having the privilege of sitting in the same room as you.
Happiest of birthdays to a woman of class, elegance, grace, and grit. One of my greatest honors of being an American is having had you serve as First Lady of the United States.
Thank you for all that you are, have been, and will be. 🩷
Gloria Steinem is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, all published in the United States, and in India, As If Women Matter. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center in the United States. As links to other countries, she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa.
For her writing, Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, the National Magazine Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce an Emmy Award–winning TV documentary for HBO, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories. She and Amy Richards co-produced a series of eight documentaries on violence against women around the world for VICELAND in 2016. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She is the subject of Julie Taymor’s biopic, The Glorias, released in Fall 2020. For her boundless commitment to feminism, and for including all voices in the name of equality, Gloria was the 2021 recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.
Here’s a bit more about Gloria’s career:
In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for fifteen years. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine’s move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women’s magazines as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.
Ms. Steinem helped to found the Women’s Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multiracial children’s education, and the National Women’s Political Caucus, a group that continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed office at a national and state level. She also co-founded the Women’s Media Center in 2004. She was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for twenty-five years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it merged with VFC for the 2004 elections. She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA (now URGE), a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership and works to preserve comprehensive sex education in schools. She is the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution here and in other countries. She was a member of the Beyond Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on the part of activists and experts from South Africa, Brazil and the United States to compare the racial patterns of those three countries and to learn cross-nationally.
As a writer, Ms. Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Women’s Sports Journalism Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for Journalism, the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism and the 2015 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. In addition to her bestsellers, her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin’s The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History.
Ms. Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956, and then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship. She wrote for Indian publications, and was influenced by Gandhian activism. She also received the first Doctorate of Human Justice awarded by Simmons College, the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees. Parenting magazine selected her for its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 for her work in promoting girls’ self-esteem, and Biography magazine listed her as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. In 2014, she received The Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award and in 2013, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. Rutgers University is now creating the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies.
In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce and narrate an Emmy Award winning TV documentary for HBO, “Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories.” With Rosilyn Heller, she also co-produced an original 1993 TV movie for Lifetime, “Better Off Dead,” which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty. She is also host and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated VICE series, WOMAN.
Gloria has been the subject of three television documentaries, including HBO’s Gloria: In Her Own Words, and she is among the subjects of the 2013 PBS documentary MAKERS, a continuing project to record the women who made America. She was the subject of The Education of a Woman, a biography written by Carolyn Heilbrun.
