Gloria Steinem hosted salons in her living room for decades—how to gather for conversation and connection, says expert
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What happened
Gloria Steinem, a prominent U.S. feminist writer and activist, died at age 92. For decades she hosted informal gatherings she called Talking Circles in the living room of her New York City brownstone, seating people without a head of the table. Associates and her 2015 memoir describe the meetings as a place where ideas for Ms. magazine, the Women’s Media Center, and other groups took shape. Gloria’s Foundation said the home will continue to be used for gatherings. After her death, journalist Allison Gilbert published a column describing the practice and listing five steps for hosting similar conversations.
BLINDSPOT.
Only left-leaning outlets are covering this story
— the other side's media is silent.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning outlets had not covered this as of publication, so the only version available is left-leaning coverage of Gloria Steinem's living-room Talking Circles after her death at 92. That coverage reports she asked people to sit without a head of the table and that plans for Ms. Magazine started to take shape in the room. A reader of the silent side never learns that Gloria's Foundation has announced the home will continue to be a site for individuals and organizations to gather.
Left-leaning coverage opens on the brownstone and closes with hosting advice under the heading "How to Gloria-fy your living room and life," with the author's app mentioned only in the sign-off. The CNBC texts match one another and supply no competing left-leaning account.
What rules will Gloria's Foundation apply when it decides who may still gather in Steinem's house?
Bottom line
CNBC turned Steinem's decades of living-room Talking Circles into a hosting guide; no right-leaning outlet has described those circles at all.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Gloria's Foundation announced that Steinem's home will continue to be a site for individuals and organizations to gather.
- Plans for Ms. Magazine and the Women's Media Center started to take shape in Steinem's living room.
- Steinem died at 92.
- Nearly three-quarters of adults spend time with people they care about only twice a month or less.
- Steinem said Talking Circles were inspired in part by Indigenous traditions of gathering in a circle.
The Left View
CNBC ran a first-person column by Allison Gilbert, an author who writes about social connection, recounting Steinem’s living-room Talking Circles, quoting attendees Ann Shoket and Soraya Chemaly, and tying the gatherings to Ms. magazine and other organizations. Gilbert offered five hosting tips: invite people over, keep food and logistics simple, include people with different views, give everyone a turn to speak, and repeat the gatherings. The New York Times published a related piece on Steinem using the dinner table to build relationships and advance causes. Coverage presents the circles as a low-hierarchy model for face-to-face connection after Steinem’s death and as a response to social isolation.
Our Take (balanced)
This is a commemorative lifestyle feature, not an investigative news story. Steinem’s practice of hosting informal circles is established in her own 2015 memoir and in named attendees’ recollections; the Foundation’s statement that the home will remain a gathering site is a concrete, attributable claim. Gilbert’s five tips and characterizations of the meetings’ impact are opinion and personal experience, not independently documented outcomes. No right-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch for Foundation details on future use of the property and for obituaries that add independently sourced accounts of the gatherings.
4 sources
- Gloria Steinem hosted salons in her living room for decades—how to gather for conversation and connection, says expert
- Gloria Steinem hosted salons in her living room for decades—how to bring people together for connection, says expert
- Gloria Steinem Found Community and Clout Over the Dinner Table
- A living room unlike any other—how to gather and connect like Gloria Steinem, says expert
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