The purple motorcycle inside

It’s 1965. You have a job and earn your own money. You pay your own bills. It’s springtime and you’re dreaming of a Paris vacation. Maybe just a week. But wouldn’t it be lovely? The Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, croissants, the Seine and les bateaux-mouches. Heavenly.

Then the practical part of your brain kicks in… having a credit card in your own name would make things—booking travel, hotels, peut-être une petite séance de shopping—a lot easier, wouldn’t it? Decision made.

Dressed in your Sunday best, you walk into your neighborhood bank feeling confident, yet a little uncertain. You’ve never applied for a credit card before.

Your confidence slips a little as you sit across from the banker. And the uncertainty slides in to fill the gap.

He listens, then tells you you’ll need your father, brother or another male relative to co-sign for the credit card.

Not because you don’t earn enough. Not because you have bad credit.

Simply because you are a woman.

Imagine that.

To many of us today, it seems unfathomable. For women living it, it was simply the way things were. Infuriating, but in 1965, this was reality.

Reality began to change in 1974, legally at least, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act made it illegal for creditors to discriminate against applicants because of sex or marital status. A woman could no longer be denied credit simply because she was a woman—nor could she be required to produce a husband or male relative to co-sign when she was perfectly capable of qualifying on her own.

The passage of that law belonged to the enormous cultural and political upheaval that Gloria Steinem helped propel into public view.

Through her writing, activism and sheer persistence, Gloria Steinem helped make women’s everyday lives, frustrations and ambitions impossible to ignore. She became one of the most recognizable voices of a movement that challenged assumptions about work, marriage, divorce, reproductive choice, sexual harassment and the notion that women should simply accept second-class status. That movement changed the world.

Change came. Not all at once. Not evenly. Not completely—but moving in the right direction.

There are whole generations of women today who have never thought twice about having a credit card in their own name. Women who expect to be taken seriously at work. Women who can name sexual harassment for what it is. Women who understand that marriage is a choice, divorce is possible and motherhood does not require the surrender of self. Certainly not because of Gloria Steinem alone. But significantly because of the movement she helped lead and amplify.

Women—and the world—lost a tremendous life force on September 2, 2026.

The outpouring of tributes since Gloria’s death has been extraordinary. Heartfelt. Heartening. So many women thanking her, in one way or another, for changing their lives.

And she did change our lives.

Living entirely on her own terms, Gloria approached the world with endless curiosity and a wonderful sense of humor.

Among her greatest gifts was the ability to make others feel seen and heard.

She listened. She believed listening could be a revolutionary act.

She believed deeply in the power of people gathering in circles, sharing their stories, listening to each other and discovering that something they had considered a private problem might actually be shared by thousands of others.

She understood that change often begins from the ground up… rather than from the top down.

Gloria often spoke about the balance between listening and speaking. In groups where some people held more power than others, she believed those with power should do more listening, while those with less power should make sure they spoke up.

Listening to other women’s stories was among her great pleasures. She spoke of the joy of being stopped by a woman in the supermarket who wanted to tell her that something she had written or said had changed her life.

One of my favorite Gloria stories begins while she was traveling in South Dakota.

A motorcycle gathering was underway nearby, and the place was filled with riders—tattooed, bearded, leather-clad, loud and more than a little intimidating.

Gloria found herself prejudging them. Their rough-and-tough reputation preceded them, as did her assumptions about how women were treated within that culture.

Then a woman from the group approached her. Similarly tattooed and leather-clad herself, slightly gruff in appearance and a little intimidating—no beard though.

She stopped in front of Gloria and told her how much she enjoyed Ms. magazine.

It was the last thing Gloria expected to hear. Her work meant something to this woman.

The woman leaned in and pointed outside to a gleaming motorcycle. “That’s mine,” she said proudly.

She used to ride behind her husband on his bike. Now she drove her own brilliant purple motorcycle with a license plate that read Ms.

Gloria loved this story not simply because the woman had discovered the pleasure of riding her own bike, but because it reminded her how easily we all lapse into assumptions, stereotypes and prejudgments about people and situations.

And because, as Gloria believed, somewhere inside each of us is a purple motorcycle.

Sometimes, though, we have to work hard to pull her out of the garage and take her for a spin.

Photo credit: Lorie Shaull / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Brightness and color adjusted slightly from original.

Sources & further reading
This piece grew out of far too many hours happily disappearing down the Gloria Steinem rabbit hole. Among the interviews, articles and programs I drew on were:

• Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday interview with Gloria Steinem
• Ms., Glamour, Vanity Fair, and other magazines
• Netflix’s Famous Last Words
• Globe Talks with Ian Brown
• Works by Gloria Steinem including Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
• A Bunny’s Tale, TV movie and Show magazine article
• Pioneer Works interview with Ronan Farrow
• Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, Voices on Independence: Four Oral Histories About Building Women’s Economic Power