Gloria

When I was twenty six and pregnant with our second child, Joshua, I went to Anshe Emet Synagogue to hear Gloria Steinem speak. At the time, I'm not sure I knew what to expect. I don't think I even knew who she was. A friend, whose name I can't remember, brought me along with her. What I do remember is it was a riveting experience.

I was such an innocent woman, still a child in so many ways. I didn't know what homosexuality was until I was twenty one. Imagine. I wrote a paper on the Sun Also Rises and used the words impotent and emasculated as if they both meant the same thing. Needless to say I didn't do well in that class. The day I heard Gloria speak opened my mind in ways I hadn't realized were shut. She wasn't the first to point out the ways in which women lacked a voice in the world. But she was the most eloquent and elegant woman to speak out on our behalf. 

In college, English literature classes were dominated by male authors. In fact I don't think we read a book by a woman in four years. Both non-fiction and fiction books flooded the market. Women Who Run With the Wolves, The Feminine Mystique, Fear of Flying, The Bluest Eye. I read all of them. Women entered law school and medical school, suffered being scoffed by the men in their classes and paved the way for those that followed. 

If you lived through the sixties and the seventies, it was difficult not to feel the energy women were experiencing. Support groups popped up everywhere where women could speak freely about their sense of oppression. A friend of mine in Evanston was still given an allowance and had to save money from it to redo her kitchen. Another had to be in the kitchen cooking when her husband came home from work. Steve and I worked through our readjustment but not everyone did.  So many women I knew were getting a divorce, burning their bras, organizing, running for office. The lid had been lifted and it's never been the same. And never will be.

The evolution of women, and as a result of men, cannot be turned back. We can't forget what we've learned. Our sons and daughters have created more open and equal lives than ever before. Not all of them, of course, and there's sometimes a backlash, but the clock can't be turned back. We don't move our awareness in a circle. Think of it more as an ever rising spiral. Right now, it feels like there is a crushing blow being inflicted upon us, trying to remove female energy and put men back in charge of our lives. A futile attempt.

As far as I can tell, most men are happier with a shared existence, a more egalitarian life. Marital partnerships last longer and are more enjoyable; children grow up feeling freer to pursue their dreams. Gloria Steinem opened that box for me and I will be forever grateful to her.