GLORIA STEINEM, AUTHOR AND FEMINIST ACTIVIST

“Dear Lisa,

Like the rest of the world, I have been following the boasting, bragging, shameful trail of the various Fox News figures over the years. On the outside, we’ve all become used to being called feminazis and ridiculed — if those guys praised us, we would know we were doing something wrong — but for the women actually working there, we could do nothing without help and evidence.

I just want to say thank you for your willingness to work for principle, to make it possible for Wendy Walsh to speak rather than be silenced by money, and so to attract more witnesses.

And thank you, too, for your strategy in escaping the statute of limitations by calling the hotline — and all the other thoughtful and smart and caring decisions you made.

There is such a lethal addiction to control that comes with the made-up ideas of “masculine” and “feminine.” I know it all comes from trying to control reproduction, and thus the bodies of women, but it’s very new in human history — only the last 500 or so years on this continent. As my friends in Indian Country say, “What did Columbus call primitive? Equal women!” The good and the bad of being human is that we can adapt. It allows our species to survive, and also makes us vulnerable to accepting almost anything.

You stood up for a woman’s right to her own body — the power of the state and of everybody else stops at our skin — and this right to our physical selves is the beginning of freedom, of human rights and maybe one day of actual democracy.

I’m grateful — and so are millions more of us out here.”