My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve taken a few days to really process this book. Going into it, I knew a few things: 1. Gloria Steinem is a feminist. 2. Gloria Steinem is a writer. 3. Gloria Steinem is an activist and organizer. Other than that, I had no idea what her memoir was going to give me. My younger sister lent me this book just after she finished reading and, and I have to say that I’m so happy that she took the time to read this book before me. In fact, I think it’s an important book for young women to read.
You see, Gloria Steinem has done so much for us during the course of her life. Though some may consider this book chaotically laid out, it made perfect sense to me. She has spent a large part of her life traveling the world, experiencing and learning things along the way. The experiences that we have along the way are never linear and sometimes we don’t even realize that we’ve learned anything from them until many years later.
I felt so inspired by this book, even from the get-go. I started it on the way to a yoga class, and I was so taken by it that I didn’t even notice my teacher riding in the same car as me…and getting off at the same stop as me…and walking to the same yoga studio as me. When I finally DID notice her, she said, “How’s that book?” and I felt dumbfounded. At first I was like, “How did she know I was reading a book?” which is a really stupid thought on my part because I am always reading books and talking about books and I work in publishing and I post my #currentlyreading photos on Instagram. Who DOESN’T know when I’m reading a new book?
The point is, I was so caught up in Steinem’s words that I didn’t even know how to function in every day life, because what got me was this passage in the introduction:
Because this book is all about stories, I hope some here might lead you to tell your own and also to get hooked on the revolutionary act of listening to others.
I wish I could imitate the Chinese women letter writers of at least a thousand years ago. Because they were forbidden to go to school like their brothers, they invented their own script–called mushu, or “women’s writing”–though the punishment for creating a secret language was death. They wrote underground letters and poems of friendship to each other, quite consciously protesting the restrictions of their lives. As one wrote, “Men leave home to brave life in the outside world. But we women are no less courageous. We can create a language they cannot understand.”
This correspondence was so precious to them that some women were buried with their letters of friendship, yet enough survive for us to see that they wrote in a slender column down the center of each page, leaving wide margins as spaces for a correspondent to add her own words.
“There have been great societies that did not use the wheel,” as Ursula Le Guin wrote, “but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
If I could, I would leave an open space for your story on every page.
You see what I mean? She shares her stories with us so that we can share ours with the world. My generation may only know of Gloria Steinem as a feminist, or what’s worse, the lady who accused young women who supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton as having a schoolyard crush on him (what?).
But this book shows us who she is and reminds us of everything she has done. This book, her stories, and her life inspire me to be more, to pursue everything I’ve ever dreamed of doing, to act in kindness and consideration for all others, especially those who don’t have a voice, because once upon a time, women didn’t have a voice, and she’s worked hard so that we could stand up and stand out.
This is an important book for many reasons. It outlines important historical moments in the civil and women’s rights movements. It accentuates the necessity to preserve our native cultures. It shows how much the world of media has changed during the course of her long career. It shows us how far America has come and how far we still need go to. But what is most meaningful to me is that she encouraged me to tell my stories, and I’m going to do just that.
Marie Hendry 