Whoopi Goldberg has a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony, and both a daytime and primetime Emmy; she has the kind of career where she's recognizable by her first name only. Which means she also has full awareness of the term “casting couch,” its connotations, and the industry that for too long has tolerated the abuse associated with it.

“These people have been around forever,” she said Tuesday night, before being honored with the 2017 Louis Auchincloss Prize at the Museum of the City of New York. “Since movies began, ‘the casting couch’ has always been there. And all of those couches have always sort of been there. People also don’t realize that men are going through it as well. So, it makes it the human condition.”

Last week on The View, Goldberg said she understood that when offered payout money from someone as powerful as Harvey Weinstein, some actors might face a difficult dilemma: “We see this a lot. Women get harassed and have to make a decision: do I want to keep paying my bills? Do I need to suck it up and just keep moving forward? Or do I say something and just get smashed?”

Goldberg was receiving the Auchincloss Prize alongside journalist and critic Michiko Kakutani, and activist and writer Gloria Steinem, all three honored for being “artists and writers whose work enhances the five boroughs of New York,” M.C.N.Y. stated in a press release. The museum currently features an exhibit called “Beyond Suffrage,” which honors women’s activism on the 100th anniversary of the year women in New York won the right to vote. As supporters of the museum honored three of New York’s most influential women, the weight of recent events in Hollywood was evident.

Steinem said on the red carpet that the resurfaced “Me Too” campaign, which youth activist Tarana Burke started in 2007, is helping those with important stories become more visible to the world and to each other.

“You know, everything comes out of telling the truth, discovering we’re not alone,” Steinem said. “We thought we were, but we’re not. If unique, individual people are having a shared experience, it’s political.”

Steinem, who helped popularize the phrase “the personal is political,” is still reaching audiences of all generations with that message. As he was helping to introduce last night’s honorees, the late Louis Auchincloss’s son, Andrew, presented Steinem with a “hero in a can” award that his 9-year-old daughter, Lily, made in her third grade class, featuring Steinem’s face drawn on a coffee can that contained a miniature copy of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, as well as a mini copy of Ms. magazine, which Steinem co-founded in 1971. Lily also included a pair of aviator shades—Steinem’s trademark fashion piece—inside her specially designed can.

Though she gleefully accepted this unexpected, handmade award and held it close to her throughout the ceremony, Steinem said before the ceremony she was just as honored to receive the Auchincloss Prize.

“You know, there are all kinds of awards, but somehow, this one means a lot to me because this place [M.C.N.Y.] represents dreams, hopes, what the world could be,” she said.

Goldberg, who was born and raised in New York City, began her speech by expressing her pride as a New Yorker.

“I thought it was the center of the universe because in New York, you have all colors of people, all kinds of people, all sizes of people. You had rich people and poor people, and in the winter, you didn't know who was who because everybody was in a big coat . . . We don’t live in a bubble here. We actually live amongst everyone together, and we figure it out, and sometimes we drop the ball, but we keep it going.”