21: Book Review 7, My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

Original painting of Gloria Steinem by myself. You can purchase a print by clicking on the photo if you feel called! xo

Before opening the door to her series of storied recollections, I knew Gloria Steinem as an intersectional feminist, writer, and activist, but I didn’t know how much of her life was spent on the roads of America, deeply connecting to Native culture and understanding the foundations of this version of democracy and organizing for a better future.

“Over time and far from home, I discovered something I might never otherwise have learned: people in the same room understand and empathize with each other in a way that isn’t possible on the page or a screen.” 

I loved this. Her story about her deep friendship and connection with Wilma Mankiller was so moving, partly because it bestowed a beautiful idea of how intimate knowing between women can create a whirlwind of intuitive power, and partly also through the lens of representational figures in a centuries-long struggle over land, personhood, and country. I loved every detail, crossroad, tangent, and gem of wisdom dispelled in Steinem’s singular experience.

Though the organizational structure of her memoir-ish collection of stories was seemingly random, sometimes imbalanced, and often zoomed in and out as if in conversation with the elephant of patriarchy, colonialism, and political barriers in the room, it is her story. It is told as an oral history: winding, backtracking, sometimes joking, sometimes serious. She bares her true self both without apology and with self-conscious awareness.

“I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one.” 

Steinem via Getty Images

What a suckerpunch of a sentence. I remember driving down the beach road where I live hearing that line for the first time and audibly laugh-gasping in recognition. I replayed that section multiple times to absorb it, and to safely transcribe it at a stop-sign so I could include its cutting truth into this blog post. Steinem knows how to communicate anger in a plainly human way, it is too honest to resist or repute, she was angry, I was angry. The anger spoken of here is not something all-absorbing like a bubble of red ooze waiting to get near a fire to ignite, no. This anger is the kind that dawns after the realization of unjust treatment, of inequality, of the unnatural hierarchy and crimes committed by a white colonial patriarchy against everyone, even its own perpetrators. It is righteous anger. It rears its head when needed, punctually baring teeth when an oppressive agent lets slip their true ideology, ready to dissent. It is the kind we need. Good trouble, as they say.

For those who are less familiar with Steinem’s work and legacy, here is a general outline from her Goodreads bio: “[Steinem] became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A prominent writer and key counterculture era political figure, Steinem has founded many organizations and projects and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. She was a columnist for New York magazine and co-founded Ms. magazine. In 1969, she published an article, ‘After Black Power, Women's Liberation’, which, along with her early support of abortion rights, catapulted her to national fame as a feminist leader.”

Something I also learned from this book (for the first time), even after reading “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz a couple of years ago, was that the United States Constitution was modeled after the Iroquois Confederacy.  

“He [Benjamin Franklin] hoped the constitution could do the same for the thirteen states. That's why he invited two Iroquois men to Philadelphia as advisers. Among their first questions was said to be, ‘Where are the women?’ Unlike the native model, the founding fathers’ constitution allowed slavery and private property as well as the exclusion of women. But like its model, the constitution upended every system of governance in Europe from Ancient Greece to the Magna Carta by putting all power in the hands of the people.”

What a mindfuck. Ha! How spooky not to learn that until I really dug, until my late twenties as an American born and raised citizen. Of course “spooky” doesn’t even cover the half of the feeling you may also be experiencing upon learning this for the first time, but other words also seem to fall short when stacked against a wall of misinformation built for centuries. The truth is like a vine crawling up the side of said wall, continually trimmed down before proliferating to the top and becoming visible to the other side, of course they wouldn’t want that. 

This brings me directly to the most poignant line from this book, which was accredited to Steinem’s long time friend and fellow activist, Paula Gun Allen.

“The root of oppression is the loss of memory.”

That is what I received from this. I realized that in one short sentence, Gun Allen had summed up to Steinem exactly what it was I was getting at in my blog post 10 “How Feminist Writing Changed My Life”, and what I felt any time I read a piece of history that prompted an immediate and simultaneous book-jaw-drop combo. Remembering history and taking the time to gain that knowledge has given me power I might otherwise have never gained access to. It is the power of knowledge, of precedent, of sheer hard facts that are purposefully “lost” by those who benefit from a generational forgetting. 

I’m grateful for women like Steinem, Gun Allen, Mankiller, and many, many more. I’m grateful for the ability to choose to fight for a better life for women and people of color around the world through both awareness and tangible activism. 

Below are some resources you can subscribe or donate to if you feel called, otherwise, thank you for reading. Your opinions matter to me as much as your readership, so please share your thoughts on this book review/blog post in the comments section below if you’d like!

With love, Gab.

https://www.madre.org/action-center/ways-to-give/

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-involved/other-ways-give/email-sign-template

https://www.change.org/p/the-college-board-should-create-an-ap-women-s-history-course?algorithm=promoted&source_location=search_footer&grid_position=5&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uACfYEAIAAAAAZgxFCSXfzZAyZDdhMzczMQ%3D%3D


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20: Book Review 6, Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Blair