Gloria Steinem, blonde, gorgeous, smart, changed the feminist movement. She was a Johnny-come-lately to those of us who’d been scarred by the NOW wars, the struggles with gay men just to see our issues recognized and, of course, the unremitting hostility from the press.
She used the media better than anyone thought possible. She knew what she could present and what she couldn’t. She knew that how you look is more important than what you say, sad but true. She was so beautiful, men couldn’t dismiss her.
As in any small pond with a few big frogs, she stirred resentment. Not from me. I’d never been so glad to see someone in my life.
I trusted her. Why, I don’t know. Southern manners enable me to get along with just about anyone if I have to, but I trust few people. Those I do trust, I trust with all my heart.
My instincts told me to get out of her way and to help in whatever manner I could. She needed little from me. I represented a fringe group at that time. However, she didn’t dismiss me or the women from the New Left. She heard everyone’s point of view.
She came at just the right time. She soothed other women by her noncompetitiveness and ripe sense of humor. She attracted acolytes. That mystified me. I have never attracted an acolyte in my entire life, then or now. Somehow my lone-wolf quality shines through and people know I’m not going to meet their emotional needs. I don’t know if Gloria meets people’s needs, but they sure get something out of their contact with her. For one thing, she makes them think. Gloria pushes people on. It’s one of her best qualities.
I asked her what she thought of gay women.
“Women are women.” That was that.
I watched with glee as she twisted interviewers around her little finger. Wherever she moved, cameras followed. Apart from Jacqueline Onassis, she must have been the most photographed woman in America.
As she took over New York, I left. The timing felt right. The women’s center on Twenty-second Street flourished in large part due to its board of directors and to June Arnold, a Texas girl with lots of money and keen business sense. Women in Media, a group to spawn writers, newscasters and journalists, was up and running. The first rape crisis center was on stable ground, with absolutely no help from the police; back then, if you were raped, the police assumed it was your fault. Underground newspapers grew fat off advertising. Universities had women’s groups. I helped organize Vassar’s feminist studies group, led by Christine Acebo, Lita Lepie and Carla Duke, a gathering of the brightest young women.
Their enthusiasm was infectious and fun.
Many people worked hard during those early days of the feminist movement.
Mom would say, “You’re less important than you think and more important than you know.”
I don’t know how important our work was, but I did my part and I was fixing to do more.
I’d spent my teenage years and early twenties criticizing the government.
What did I really know?
After all the bitching and moaning, I figured I had to see for myself.
I moved to Washington, D.C., that northernmost southern city.
Martha Shelley helped me move, a great kindness. Baby Jesus bitched and moaned the entire way.
When Martha got on the train to go back to New York she said, “I feel like I’m leaving you in the belly of the whale.”
If Jonah could survive, so could I.