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How India Shaped Gloria Steinem’s Feminist Organizing Lessons

Gloria Steinem was an American feminist who visited India in 1956.

She stayed for two years and traveled among villages and communities.

Gandhian organizers taught her to listen carefully to people before asking them to join a movement.

In Tamil Nadu, she saw villagers sit in circles where everyone could speak and everyone had to listen.

She later used a similar idea in American women’s groups.

These groups became places where women could safely share problems and develop ideas together.

In 1976, Steinem and Devaki Jain interviewed Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay about Gandhi’s methods.

Chattopadhyay reminded them that ordinary people, especially women, had helped shape nonviolent resistance.

Steinem later called these “talking circles” one of the most important discoveries of her life.

Key facts

India stay: Gloria Steinem spent two years in India after arriving in 1956 on a Chester Bowles Asian Fellowship.
Interview: Steinem and Devaki Jain interviewed Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in New Delhi in 1976.
Village organizing: In 1957, Steinem joined Gandhian activists walking between villages in Ramnad, now Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu.
Talking circles: Village groups used circles in which people spoke in turn, listened to one another, and prioritized consensus.
Travel experience: Steinem traveled in a women-only railway car from Calcutta toward Kerala after giving up car-and-driver travel.
Later application: She connected her Indian experiences to organizing among women’s shelters, clinics, campus centers, and welfare protests in the United States.
Core lesson: Steinem concluded that people are more likely to listen when organizers first listen to them.

indianexpress.com · 3 hrs ago