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| Gloria Steinem with Dorothy Pitman Hughes (photo by Dan Wynn, ca 1972) |
Here's the thing I admired most about Gloria Steinem, something I picked up from Julie Taymor's incredible (and underrated) bio pic, The Glorias: women's liberation wasn't all about her, even though she served as its mediagenic lightning rod for nearly as long as I've been alive.
In India, after fleeing first from an engagement and then an abortion, Steinem acquired a critical skill rare among male leaders, learning to listen to others and doing everything in her power to ensure their voices were heard, too. The original riot grrl with a phantom Bunny tail, center-parted hair and aviator glasses, she embraced both the Black Power movement and what another feminist derisively called "the lavender menace."
Steinem was Ms. DEI long before it had a name. Although her grief and dread on November 6, 2024 must have been incalculable, I hope she took some consolation from being on the right side of history for most of her life, so capacious that it took two Oscar-winning actresses to portray her in the same movie!
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