Voices of Their Generation: Gloria Steinem Hosted a Book Party at Her Historic Home for Lena Dunham

Reported by Vogue.

Gloria Steinem's Upper West Side brownstone hosted something that felt ripped from a very specific fantasy: Lena Dunham, in baby bangs and tweed, sitting down with the feminist icon herself to discuss her new memoir, Famesick. Warby Parker's Book Report series orchestrated the whole thing—a live conversation between two writers who've spent decades provoking culture and complicating what it means to be a woman in America. But Dunham was clear about what actually mattered. "Tonight is not about my book," she told Vogue. It was about the space itself: Steinem's legendary apartment, that mythical gathering ground where decades of galvanizing conversations have happened, sometimes with four people, sometimes with forty.

The night felt intentionally intimate. Wine (and Olipop, Dunham's drink of choice) paired with vegan polenta bites and miso tartlets. Guests clustered on the living room floor, debating whether Steinem was a Girls girl—a question that answered itself pretty quickly. Then everyone migrated upstairs, grabbing floor cushions and settling in as feminist writer Amy Richards moderated the conversation. Nothing was off limits: the splintering of modern feminism, the "not-nice feminist" stigma, the impossible economics of women saying yes to everything. Steinem asked the room if people still ask whether they're feminists. It's a loaded question now—the term has become nebulous since its 2010s fever pitch—but Steinem's openness created actual honesty.

Feminism as Merch, Feminism as Choice

Dunham used Famesick to examine the period when feminism got aggressively commercialized. Everyone owned the underpants, the t-shirt with "The Future Is Female." She had them all, she said—then gave them away. "Not because they weren't chic but because they were of a time. It served its purpose." Her mother's real lesson, though: feminism means protecting each other's right to make choices you might not personally make. That landed differently than any slogan ever could.

The conversation bounced between quotable moments. Steinem: "Dividing us into masculine and feminine is kind of crazy." Dunham: "Anyone who tells you how generous they are is usually not." Steinem even offered literary gossip—Philip Roth, apparently, deserved the critique—turning the whole thing invigorating and funny at once. When asked what they hoped guests would leave with, Steinem said simply, "A new friend. Or a curiosity." Dunham joked, "A souvenir. Take one of Gloria's things"—then clarified she was kidding. (She wasn't wrong though: everyone left with signed copies and a pair of Steinem's favorite Warby Parker frames.)

The real souvenir was the reminder that feminism, at its best, happens in rooms like this one—messy, honest, and refusing to be reduced to a brand.

Read the original at Vogue.