Personal hero Gloria Feldt–who is also on the Board of the Women’s Media Center, where I’m part of that first class of Progressive Women’s Voices–is about to hit #11 on the New York Times Bestseller list with her new book with Kathleen Turner, called Send Yourself Roses.

I met Kathleen at their book party earlier this week and was appropriately star struck.

But what I want to share via Gloria this morning is something she shared with us at PVW a few weeks ago. She was asked about the lessons she learned leading a social movement where she worked a great deal with the media and messages as vehicles of social change. And she told us about the importance of embracing controversy–something I’m still learning. I seem to keep playing it safe when reporters contact me to talk about intergenerational divide among women around the election. I’m working on how to respond without fueling a notion of “catfight.” Still working on it. Meanwhile, Gloria’s general comments to us are now posted on her blog, here.

In a nutshell, the 6 C’s of Embracing Controversy:

Controversy is the Courage to risk putting your Convictions out there to the world, using the controversy strategically, because controversy is a Clarifier—it gets people’s attention so you can use your platform to present your Case at a time when people are paying attention, and therefore controversy is a Change agent—because to make change you have to make people think differently, learn new things, and clarify their values.

May we all learn to follow Gloria’s example, I say. The woman knows from whence she speaks.