Valley women remember Gloria Steinem: ‘We were an invincible team’

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) - The photograph hangs in a frame in Ginny Foat's Palm Springs home: five women in Los Angeles in 1980, running Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign in Southern California. Maxine Waters, then a state assemblywoman, is in it. So is Midge Costanza, the former Carter White House aide. So is Foat. And so is Gloria Steinem.

"We were an invincible team of activists," Foat said Thursday, a day after Steinem died at her home in New York City at age 92. "We were heading up a team in Los Angeles for Kennedy."

Steinem never lived in the Coachella Valley. But for Foat, a former Palm Springs city councilmember, and for Elle Kurpiewski of the Democratic Headquarters of the Desert, her death is personal.

Foat's tie to Steinem runs through one of the most painful chapters of the women's movement. Foat was president of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women when she was arrested in Burbank in January 1983 on a Louisiana murder charge from 1965. The accusation came from her ex-husband, John Sidote, a twice-admitted killer whom Foat has said beat her throughout their marriage. Louisiana authorities found her, Foat later said, because a political rival inside NOW tipped them off.

NOW's national leadership steered clear of its former California chief. Steinem did not. She publicly urged women to unite behind Foat's defense as they would behind a family member in trouble, calling Foat a "testament" to what feminism could do for a woman.

"It was a time when the National Organization for Women was finally being accepted in society, and they wanted that so bad that they lost touch with their roots," Foat said. "But Gloria wouldn't stand for that. It was a painful time for me, and it was wonderful to have her in my corner."

A Louisiana jury acquitted Foat on Nov. 16, 1983, after deliberating less than two hours. She went on to serve 13 years on the Palm Springs City Council.

Kurpiewski's story came two decades later. She was a United Airlines flight attendant when she challenged Republican Rep. Mary Bono in California's 45th Congressional District in 2002. She says she was the first flight attendant in the country to run for Congress. Some of her supporters knew Steinem, and the Ms. magazine co-founder flew to the desert to headline a fundraiser.

"She wanted to meet with me privately, and we did. We sat down and talked for about 15 or 20 minutes before the event, and then she gave a great speech on my behalf," Kurpiewski said. "It meant so much that she would come here to the desert to advocate for a woman."

Bono won reelection that year. Kurpiewski said the fundraiser "made me a lot of money."

Kurpiewski said she first heard Steinem's name around 1969, when she joined United. What stuck with her was Steinem's undercover reporting as a Playboy Bunny in 1963.

"This was, for me, investigative reporting at its best," she said.

Steinem had been in declining health, according to The Associated Press. A statement posted to her Instagram account said she "passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her," and that she continued working for equality until the end. No cause of death was given. Her representatives asked supporters to light a candle in her honor and donate to Gloria's Foundation.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934, Steinem graduated from Smith College in 1956 and began working as a journalist in New York in 1960. She helped found the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971 and co-founded Ms. magazine the following year. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 and, at 82, was a keynote speaker at the 2017 Women's March on Washington.

Steinem wrote about one other visit to the desert in her 2015 memoir "My Life on the Road" — a Thanksgiving weekend in Palm Springs with a wealthy boyfriend and his friends that included dinner at Frank Sinatra's home, where she tried unsuccessfully to interest the group in funding programs for women and girls.

Kurpiewski's message for those mourning Steinem was blunt.

"The worst thing we could do in honoring Gloria Steinem is to quit," Kurpiewski said. "We've got to go out to more streets, and we've got to write more postcards, and we've got to vote. If anybody had any respect for Gloria Steinem, then show your respect — and vote."

Foat was asked what she would say to Steinem if she could one last time. She began to cry.

"Thank you. I think that's the most I can say. It's the best I can say," she said. "Thank you for all you did for me. And thank you for what you've done for women."