Main content

Gloria Steinem

Kirsty Young interviews feminist, writer and activist Gloria Steinem, who chooses the eight records that she would take with her to a desert island.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer, feminist & activist, Gloria Steinem.

At the forefront of the second wave of feminism, she came to prominence after publishing an article entitled "After Black Power, Women's Liberation" in 1969. Two years later she co-founded the feminist magazine Ms. As an activist, she has spent much of her life travelling, giving talks and lecturing.

Born in 1934 in Ohio, her father was a businessman who ran a lake-side resort in the summer and packed up his family at the first sign of frost to travel cross-country in a caravan selling antiques. Her mother had been a newspaper journalist and later suffered a nervous breakdown before Gloria was born. She became her mother's sole carer aged eleven when her parents divorced. It was only following their separation, having settled down in a house in Toledo, that she spent her first full year at school.

After high school, she read politics and government and then traveled around India for two years on a fellowship. On her return, she established herself as a writer in 1960s New York and co-founded Ms. magazine in 1971. Since then, her writing has appeared in innumerable magazines, newspapers, anthologies, television commentaries, political campaigns, and film documentaries in America and internationally. In 2013 she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest honour, by Barack Obama.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Available now

36 minutes

Last on

Fri 25 Mar 2016 09:00
麻豆社 Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

Yinka Shonibare

Next

John Timpson

See all episodes from Desert Island Discs

Clip

Music Played

  • Petula Clark

    Downtown

    • The Best of Petula Clark.
    • Castle Communications.

  • Judy Collins

    My Father

    • Colors Of The Day.
    • Warner Music UK Ltd..

  • Anna Moffo

    Naughty Marietta

    • Treasury of Great Operettas.
    • The Reader's Digest Association Inc..

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Der H枚lle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (Queen of the Night聭s Aria)

    Performer: Karin Ott. Performer: Chorus of the German Oper, Berlin. Performer: Berliner Philharmoniker. Conductor: Herbert von Karajan.

  • Phoebe Snow

    Poetry Man

    • The Best of Phoebe Snow.
    • In-Akustik GMBH.

  • Stevie Wonder

    Isn聮t She Lovely

    • The Definitive Collection.
    • Universal/Island.

  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Concerto In F Minor, Op.8 No.4, RV 297 "Winter", III. Allegro

    Orchestra: New York Philharmonic. Conductor: Leonard Bernstein.
    • Vivaldi: The Four Seasons.
    • Sony Classical.

  • CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE

    • Henry Purcell

      Dido and Aeneas / Act 3 - "Thy hand, Belinda...When I am laid in earth"

      Performer: Jessye Norman. Conductor: Raymond Leppard. Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra.
      • Brava Jessye: The Very Best of Jessye Norman.
      • Philips/Polygram.

  • BOOK CHOICE

    The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  • LUXURY ITEM

    Eye drops

Credits

Presenter Kirsty Young
Interviewed Guest Gloria Steinem
Producer Cathy Drysdale

Broadcasts

  • Sun 20 Mar 2016 11:15
    麻豆社 Radio 4
  • Fri 25 Mar 2016 09:00
    麻豆社 Radio 4

Featured in...

The Desert Island Discs podcast

The Desert Island Discs podcast

Subscribe or download individual episodes.

Listen to over 2,000 programmes

Click above to browse castaways, from 1942 to today.

Articles

Read the surprising things we've learned about some stand-out castaways.

Podcast