How to meet and connect like Gloria Steinem, says expert

I can’t stop thinking about Gloria Steinem’s living room. For years, Steinem gathered people in his New York City brownstone and asked them to sit together, without the head of the table, without hierarchy. He called them “Talking Circles.”

He said the practice was inspired in part by indigenous traditions of gathering in a circle, something Steinem wrote about in her 2015 memoir “My Life on the Road.” As a journalist and author focused on human connection and social health, that part of the book always stayed with me.

“I was surprised by how open and accessible she was,” Ann Shoket, executive director of a community of women and non-binary leaders called TheLi.st, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday after discovering that the feminist icon had died at age 92. “She was also deeply real,” said Shoket, who tells me she mingled in Steinem’s living room twice at events held in recent months. “She made us all dream big.”

The conversations that took place in those circles would change lives in ways big and small. It was there that plans for Ms. Magazine and the nonprofit Women’s Media Center began to take shape. And often, it was the space Steinem offered organizations like Third Wave, Equality Now and Direct Impact Africa to plan their next steps, marking “turning points” in their work, according to the Gloria Foundation.

Much of the power of Steinem’s living room was that it opened opportunities to provide support, let ideas flow, and build trust face-to-face. It fostered moments of welcome connection for decades, most recently in an era when nearly three-quarters of adults spend time with people they care about only twice a month or less, and about two-thirds say they never participate in clubs or organizations.

“Gloria was very interested in intergenerational connection,” Soraya Chemaly, author of “All We Want is Everything” and a board member of the Women’s Media Center, tells me. “She would listen to the young women who sat in her living room, never talking down to them, always validating them,” says Chemaly, who estimates she was invited to Steinem’s living room nearly a dozen times. “She built community and solidarity in a discreet and comfortable space.”

The Gloria Foundation has announced that Steinem’s home will continue to be a gathering place for people and organizations.

You don’t have to be in Steinem’s living room to learn about what happened there.

From my research on forming meaningful connections at work, at home, and in third spaces that sometimes seem elusive today, here are five simple actions you can take from Steinem Meetings and put into practice in your own living room and beyond:

1. Be the host: Steinem offered her living room to activists and many others, giving them space to be under the same roof and have meaningful dialogue. Invite people, regardless of the size of your house. The number of guests is never as important as the opportunity to get together. If the costs and logistics associated with planning make you hesitate, ask a friend, family member, neighbor or colleague to co-host with you.
2. Lower pressure: The goal of Steinem’s Talking Circles was conversation. Don’t put off hosting because you think you need to offer more than you really do. No one really needs the most elaborate buffet or dessert table. You can even ask guests to contribute to a potluck meal.
3. Invite widely and generously: Steinem brought together people who otherwise would not have found themselves in the same room. Include the neighbor you barely know or a person whose perspective is very different from yours. Think expansively.
4. Set the tone: Everyone in Steinem’s room was invited to speak and listen. The discussions were intentionally devoid of the types of power dynamics that tend to prevent people from sharing their experiences and perspectives. Try asking a question and giving everyone a turn to answer. Don’t let the most talkative person dominate.
5. Make it repeatable: The Steinem meetings were not isolated events. Because the to-do list is almost always the same, meetings can take on a repeatable rhythm. If you do Gloria-fy at home, the first few events can be the most difficult to execute. But it will get easier with time. Host, rinse, repeat. Gloria style.

Allison Gilberto is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, author of six best-selling and critically acclaimed books, and host of “Connected lives“She is also the founder of More connectedthat helps people build stronger relationships and a greater sense of belonging at home, work, and in their communities. the next More connected The app is designed to help people deepen the connections they already have.