Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Gloria Steinem Wants Young People To Laugh, Have Sex And Revolt

In a commencement speech at New York City’s School of Visual Arts last week, activist and icon Gloria Steinem spoke urgently on the state of the union.

“We are in a time of maximum change. On the one hand there is great danger, and I am not for a moment diminishing how great that danger is, and on the other hand, we are woke,” she said. “I have never in my life seen so much organic, sustained, enthusiastic, inventive, created, and fan-fucking-tastic activism.”

Steinem called the graduates “the arts of the heart,” and cautioned them that from her experience, revolutionaries have to proceed in a way that will renew a world they want to be a part of.

“If you want to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music at the end of the revolution,” she said, beaming at the cheering graduates and their families, “You have to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music on the way.”

Steinem was introduced by the Chairman of the School of Visual arts, Milton Glaser, who said of Steinem, “None of us will ever hear from anyone who has reset the direction of human kind more profoundly.” He called Steinem instrumental in “a change in the fundamental relationship between men and women”.

Steinem, visibly moved as she surveyed the auditorium, said, “I grew up in Toledo hoping, praying to be a rockette…I just want to say to my 10 and 11-year-old self — I’m on the stage at Radio City Music Hall and it’s better than being a rockette.”

Gloria Steinem: we think she’s fan-fucking-tastic.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.