When Barbara Nessim answers the video call from her apartment in New York City on Friday morning, the first thing she says is: “You wouldn’t be calling me if it weren’t for Gloria, you wouldn’t be working, you wouldn’t have a job.”
The 87-year-old artist is talking, of course, about her lifelong friend and former roommate, Gloria Steinem. We were speaking the day after the pioneering feminist’s death at the age of 92 was announced to the world. The second-wave feminism of which Steinem became a figurehead is the reason why women like me “are respected,” working and independent, says Nessim. “That’s her legacy.”