Gloria Steinem's Birthday March 25, 2024

On March 25, Gloria Steinem will be 90 years old. She has been an inspiration to me in so many many ways and now, she is an inspiration in longevity!

One of my saddest and ONLY regrets came from an episode after I left my ex-husband Michael in 1981. I took very few things because my car, a very old VW beetle had failed inspection and had a 24 hour "off the road" sticker on it, so I basically left on foot. My brothers helped me move a few sticks of survival furniture, a roll-away cot, a small table and some chairs, some art supplies and my clothes. But what I had to leave on the curb on trash day were three or four precious crates of Second Wave Feminism books and magaines It broke my heart but my back hurt even more and I could't carry those crates up all those steps into that dreary little 2nd floor apartment over a pharmacy on Haddon Ave. in Collingswood. I was done, flattened on the road like a run over cat. But I have regreted that so frequently since. There were feminist magazines that only came out twice like rare colorful mushrooms in the forest.

It is hard to describe, now, the wild fervor and enthusiasm of the Second Wave Feminists in my college from 1970 to 1974. We were doing everything, writing, painting, publishing our own magazines, one of a kind books, making all kinds of artwork. We were marching, wiping our faces clean of the costume of feminity that was eye make-up and lipstick and we were wearing earth shoes so our toes could finally spread out the way our souls were.

An avid reader, I read everything from the Feminine Mystique to Ruby Fruit Jungle and everything in between. Those early, lively, revolutionary copies of Ms. Magazine were breathtaking. There were issues featuring the latest artists and musicians and their wild forays. The one I remember best was about "Woman House" a collaborative art venture where artist took each closet and room in a house and transformed it into an installation on the female experience.

Sadly, today, Ms. Magazine is like a well meaning but deadly dull old club lady in a chintz chair editing the church bulletin. I have a couple of copies I can't even get myself to read. It isn't that the writing isn't sincere or true, but that it is unmitigated dull drudgery on the plights of women in third world countries, long dull prose pieces, well meaning but dry. The fun and the wild explorations are gone along with our youth.

The outre' vanguard of Second Wave Feminism has doddered into our old age, and we are tired. I am tired. I am busy seeing to my personal survival in a body that increasingly just can't make it up the stairs anymore, much like that day I left the crates on the sidewalk. It reminds me of an old dog I saw once, who, eagerly watching the frisbee his human had thrown, lumbered to its feet and made a whole hearted effort to go fetch it, but fell down and lay there panting.

To celebrate Gloria's birthday, I have bought a book of hers published in 2019 called "The Truth will set you free though first it will piss you off." Truth be told I have a lot of trouble reading with my failing eyesight.The last book of hers that I read was "My Life On The Road." Her life on the road started early with her childhood in the car with her traveling salesman father.

Like me, Gloria had no advantages beyond those given by physical nature. She was good-looking and intelligent and those two gifts carried her far. Like Gloria, I was good-looking and intelligent and that's how I know how much benefit those two traits bring to the life of a woman. Also like Gloria, I took a short and, in my case, dangerous, foray into the world of marriage and made my escape into what Elizabeth Cady Stanton called "The Splendid Solitude of Self." What Virginia Woolf called "A Room of One's Own." And in that state, I have resided comfortably for more than 40 years. I hope, like Gloria, I can remain in comfortable solitude of self until I reach my 90th birthday. Who knows?

Happy Birthday Gloria Steinem, My Hero! wrightj45@yahoo.com