Gloria Steinem and Ela Bhatt: Different Paths but a Shared Vision of Empowering Women

Gloria Steinem and Ela Bhatt met just a handful of times over the decades, but the complementing and contrasting elements of their life journeys are both intriguing and inspiring.   

Both women were born a year apart in the early 1930s, each a product of the country, the culture, and the time she grew up in. Steinem arrived in India in 1957 as a young student. She was soon drawn to the work of Vinoba Bhave and was so impressed by the Gandhian approach to organising, that it became her model for organising the feminist movement. Bhatt did not need to discover Gandhi; she was well-steeped in Gandhian ideas and ideals through her maternal grandfather, who was in the first band of satyagrahis on the Salt March to Dharasana. Both women believed in the power of the people, especially women, at the grassroots to effect change.

The year 1972 was a pivotal year for both women. Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine in New York, the first national magazine in the US about women, founded by women. Its first cover showed the American housewife as a multi-armed Indian goddess, each arm holding a device that defined her role in society. The impact of Ms. magazine in raising awareness of women’s role in society, and on the feminist movement in the US, cannot be understated.

That same year, Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women's Association in Ahmedabad, an unprecedented trade union of poor, self-employed women, whose vital contribution as vendors, artisans, and home-based workers was invisible to society, and whose enormous contribution to the national economy was invisible and therefore went unrecognised. Because they had no employer, they did not qualify as workers, and labour laws did not apply to them – an injustice that SEWA challenged across India and all the way to the ILO. 

While Steinem made women's lives legible in print and in the public eye, Bhatt made women's work legible in terms of law and the economy.

Both women believed that listening was key to organising. Both believed in the power of the circle – coming together as equals, rather than vying for a seat at the head table. Both distrusted the pyramid. Both refused to be called leaders, even as millions followed them. 

Still early in their careers, Bhatt and Steinem first met at the World Conference on Women held in Mexico City in 1975, thanks to the generosity of Devaki Jain.  They met at India International Centre (IIC) in 2014, where Ela shared her experience with SEWA that women and their work will lead us to restoring nature and building peace. They met again in 2014 at a Smith College graduation ceremony, Steinem’s alma mater, when Bhatt received an honorary doctorate, her granddaughter Maya received a bachelor’s degree, and Bhatt’s sister Rupa celebrated her 50th reunion as a Smith alumna. Their friendship blossomed, grew personal, and Steinem visited Bhatt and her sister in Hamilton, Canada a couple of years later. Half a century had passed since their first meeting, but over the years, although there was mutual admiration, they never joined forces.  Their destination was women’s empowerment, but their paths were their own.

Steinem worked with a narrative and her weapon was language. She understood that before a law can change, a sentence must change. If a woman could come out and state in Ms. Magazine that she had an abortion, was harassed or did unpaid work at home, then that private fact became a public issue as soon as it was published. Her constituency was the reader. Her achievement was bringing visibility and legitimacy to women’s issues.

Bhatt on the other hand worked with money and her weapon was the bank account. She understood that before a woman can speak freely, she must have enough income to eat freely. SEWA Bank, founded in 1974, offered credit to illiterate working women because commercial banks would not. SEWA looked to address the basic needs of the multi-armed working woman, including childcare, health insurance, housing, legal aid, as well as financial literacy, access to credit, markets and skill upgrading.  Bhatt’s constituency was the poor working women of India – the farmer, a small business owner, the vendor, the craftswoman, the cart-puller. Her achievement was the economic empowerment of millions of self-employed women across India.

Steinem used her fame, face and connections to fund and promote the causes of civil rights, gender equality, and reproductive rights of women in the US. Bhatt, on the other hand, encouraged the women of SEWA to speak for themselves – as women, as workers, as members of the community, and contributors to the national GDP, their voices were the true agents of economic change where it mattered the most. 

Steinem taught women to say, ‘This happened to me, and this has to change’. Bhatt taught women to say, ‘I worked for it, and so I am entitled to it’.

These two sentences have powered change in the lives of millions of women in India, the US, and across the world, making their impact, evaluation and energy stronger.

Bhatt called the facets of feminism, Anubandh, mutual interdependence, that is, connectedness of all women. No woman is alone, when one woman stands up the other woman, however far in time or place, is encouraged to stand up.

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