About two minutes after Dr. Ruth Westheimer walks into Refinery29’s office, she asks me to tell her about the company. Is Refinery29 a newspaper? A magazine? “It’s a website for millennial and Gen Z women women,” I tell her. “Gen what? Write that down for me.” So our interview begins with me writing down “Gen Z = ages 22 and under” in my notebook, tearing out the page, and handing it to her.
At age 91 and a half — and yes, she counts the half — Dr. Ruth is working as hard as she ever has. Next year will mark 40 years since her first radio show, Sexually Speaking, kicked off her media career as a sex educator, though her work in human sexuality began earlier. (Her first gig was as a researcher at Planned Parenthood in the 1960s.) Today, she’s promoting her latest book, the fourth edition of …
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