photo © Beowulf Sheehan
“Vote!”
—GLORIA STEINEM, author and activist
“It’s outrageous that so many citizens didn’t vote in the 2016 election,” said Gloria Steinem, the human rights activist and iconic leader of the American feminist movement. “If voter turnout had been the same as it was when Obama first ran for president, Trump would have lost. But the good news is,” she continued, “that his presidency has activated more people, particularly women, than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, more than even during the Vietnam War.”
It was now just two months before the November 2018 midterm elections, which would see the Democratic party win back the House of Representatives. Women’s eNews had been increasingly reporting on the surge of women candidates running for Congress, as well as their ideas, policies, and proposals to protect women’s rights while promoting gender equality. We’d recently launched a new weekly series entitled, “Us in the US,” to alert our national and international readers to the Trump Administration’s growing anti-women sentiment and legislation, in hopes of urging those in political office to take a stronger stance to support women’s rights before they are further curtailed. After a few articles in the series were published, I was unsure of its impact. I therefore contacted Gloria in hopes of meeting with her to get her advice. She responded within twenty-four hours, and a meeting was scheduled for just a few weeks later.
While receiving a response from Gloria Steinem in less than a day may seem surprising to most, it was not at all to me. Having met her for the first time twenty-five years earlier during her book tour for Revolution from Within (published in 1992), I recall drumming up just enough courage to mention that I was also a writer (although not yet published), as I timidly handed her my book to sign. Rather than just signing her name, she personalized it with the following message: “To a Sister Writer.” This was all I needed to cement my future as a feminist writer. In the years that followed, as I became a published writer, launched my own feminist magazine (Work Life Matters), and then became executive director of Women’s eNews (a global women’s news organization), I have come to expect no less from Gloria, no matter the time or location. When I wrote an article for the Huffington Post in tribute to her turning eighty years old (in 2014), she responded within twenty-four hours with an email personally thanking me, while she was traveling through India riding elephants, humanely of course. When I wrote an article about coming out as gay in the Huffington Post in 2016, she immediately sent me an email expressing her support for my bravery, as well as her sorrow for my having needed to live, at any time, untrue to myself. And in 2018, when I published a link in Women’s eNews to my speaking publicly, for the very first time, about being sexually abused by my brother, my mother’s refusal to acknowledge it, and why I now sleep in a T-shirt courageously sporting the boldly written message, “Be the Woman You Always Needed As a Girl,” she wrote to me the following day:
Your letter about your abuse by your brother—and your mother’s lack of response—is moving and courageous—and actually an opening into a kind of abuse also suffered by two friends of mine, too, yet rarely included in studies of abuse. Thank you thank you! And I love that T-shirt! and you!
Gloria
The day of our meeting, Gloria welcomed me into her New York City apartment with a warm and all-embracing hug. She was dressed in black, her hair tied back in a small ponytail. Her tall, thin figure appeared gentle, yet self-assured. In her presence, I always feel completely at home, since we have, over the years, had prearranged meetings like this one, been photographed together on red carpets at various galas, and spontaneously run into each other at numerous feminist events in New York City, which we both call home. Her two-story apartment displays the historical splendor of a life fully lived. On every wall hangs a multitude of paintings and photographs reflecting the diversity of human rights activists who have come before and after her. No space is left untouched, playing host to a unique display of furniture, sculpture, and crafts collected from over six decades of global travel. “This apartment is the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Gloria, who moved in over fifty years ago, when the rent was only three hundred dollars a month for one floor. “It was much cheaper to first rent and then buy an apartment.” She ultimately bought the apartment a few years later for a mere $27,000.
Standing against a wall at the entrance to her office is a replica of a New York City street sign stamped boldly with the words, MS. MAGAZINE WAY, a newly named street on the corner of East 32nd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, standing in tribute to the iconic magazine that had once been located at 207 East 32nd St. “At first, I thought this was the only free block they had left,” Gloria chuckled, her humor and humility always present. She then introduced me to her new cat, Aphendum. “This cat only has three paws, which she is completely unaware of. My niece, who is a rescuer of cats, decided I should have a three-legged cat,” she said with a wide grin.
As we sat down to talk, I first asked Gloria her thoughts about how Women’s eNews can best utilize its resources as a global, nonprofit news outlet to ensure women’s rights do not decline even further under the current presidential administration. Gloria responded by speaking of the critical importance of getting people out to vote during the midterm elections. “We need to gather people on the ground to get as many people to vote as possible,” she said, “and the best way to do so is through bitable bites.” By the end of our discussion the new weekly series, “3 for V,” was born, where Women’s eNews invites its readers to ask three people per day (at home, at work, at the gym, etc.) these three questions: 1. Are you registered to vote? 2. Do you know where to vote? and 3. Do you know who your state legislators are? “It’s doing things like these on a regular basis that are directed toward the levers of power that actually work.” Gloria added.
This was not the first time I had sought out Gloria’s advice. It actually started long before I met her; so long ago, in fact, that I was still living under my parents’ roof. While I did not personally know her then, her speeches, essays, and books provided me with the hope and positivity I so desperately needed to counterbalance my toxic childhood.
I’d grown up hearing one prevailing word from my parents: wrong. As far back as I can remember, my parents consistently, and emphatically, told me I was wrong! Sometimes this word was hurled at me via a rhetorical question, “What’s wrong with you?” Other times, it was more declarative and decisive in nature, “There is something wrong with you!”
Eventually, I learned that what was “wrong” was my inability to fit neatly into the box they had built for me, one that was encased in traditional gender behaviors and values on all four sides. Excelling in competitive sports and academics (particularly math and science) was “highly inappropriate for a girl,” they warned, particularly when my older brother did not.
It was not until I turned twelve years old that I discovered an alternate belief system, and it arrived in a monthly package measuring 8 ½ × 11 inches. Ms. magazine, the first national feminist publication to introduce the women’s rights movement into the mainstream, provided an open window with an expansive view of what was possible for me, and females of all ages, who did not ascribe to patriarchal-imposed gender roles. Through its articles exploring such empowering themes as women’s financial and emotional independence, education and career opportunities, and what gender equality could and would look like, I, for the very first time, learned that I wasn’t completely alone in the world. It was particularly through its monthly “Letters to the Editor” section, espousing and exposing others’ dissatisfaction with the traditional status quo from real women with real names from such far-off places like Jean from Prince Edward Island, Mary from Liking, Missouri, and Sally from Contoocook, New Hampshire, where I finally found my true home. Still, too many women opted for “Name withheld” below their published letters, hiding their secret wish for gender equality from those who knew them. I knew early on that I would dedicate my life’s work to this cause. I imagined I could help women and girls feel less fearful, intimidated, and alone. To offer a beacon of hope in the darkness, which was what Ms. did for me.
After I graduated from college, however, my parents had different ideas for my future. Feeling imprisoned under their roof with no financial means to leave, I was pressured to become a secretary, via their veiled justification that by learning to type, I would have “something to fall back on.” For me, failure was not an option, but my parents made it clear that if I didn’t do exactly as they said, I would face daily pressure, criticism, and other forms of emotional abuse. Yet, I was not to be just any secretary, my father warned, but a secretary for the post office, where he spent his thirty-plus-year career. Not only would I ultimately retire thirty-five years later with lifetime medical benefits and a pension, as he had, but, my mother added excitedly, “You will work for an executive, in an office, with carpeting on the floor.” Eventually, we reached an agreement. I would work as a secretary, but in the industry I preferred, magazine publishing. They ultimately agreed, particularly since these offices were mostly carpeted. I then spent two very long years doing so, barely getting by, and thankful for, once again, the help of Ms. Magazine. One letter to the editor, in particular, provided a very small, but life-saving, daily exercise to get me through:
“Ms. readers who are secretaries may be interested in my daily assertiveness practice, which never fails to give me a boost. I type my initials in upper case next to the upper-case initials of those of the originator’s at the bottom of whatever correspondence it might be. Small, but daily.”
—KAY KAVANAUGH, Oak Park, Illinois. April 1982
This would be my first and last secretarial job. I was determined to write about gender issues for any community or local newspaper that would publish my articles. Eventually my articles began to be published in major market newspapers and magazines, and then I launched my own magazine publishing firm in 2002, which celebrated the successes of women in male-dominated industries. This ultimately led to my current role as the executive director of Women’s eNews, a nonprofit digital news organization covering the most crucial issues impacting women and girls around the world.
Since joining Women’s eNews, I have purposely published more real-life stories from women and girls located in some of the most dangerous locations for females, who can uniquely describe their personal experiences. Clearly, attaching names and faces to articles, rather than just speaking in terms of quantities and totals, makes them more memorable and impactful.
I learned this in 2007, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. Gloria invited me to join a small group of women to share our writing, and we met every three weeks over six months. She was working on, among other things, her memoir (published in 2018); I was writing freelance op-eds for the Huffington Post and other mass-market publications; and the other members were working on everything from short stories to essays to books of their own.
Sitting in a small circle with these other women, around the living room table where Ms. magazine was born, I felt complete support and unconditional acceptance for the first time in my life. There is nothing I could read or say or do that would be judged, I thought. How freeing; how liberating. This gave me the courage to read a spontaneously written piece about an experience I had hidden, out of shame, for over forty years. It was the worst beating I’d ever experienced, condoned by my entire family. I was seven years old at the time. My brother and I had slept overnight at my maternal grandmother’s house, as we would do from time to time to allow my parents a night out alone. My grandmother didn’t like me, often threatening to “wash my mouth out with soap.” I was too outspoken and independent for my age and gender, she repeatedly warned. After months of threatening to tell my father how I “misbehaved,” one day she actually did. When my parents walked through the front door after their date, she barely had enough time to get all the words out about my misbehavior when my father rushed over to me, picked me up by my clothes, and threw me onto the floor, face down. My grandmother yelled “Again!” and he did. Each time I landed on the floor, my brother laughed. Finally, after hitting the floor five or six times, my mother yelled, “Enough!” After one or two more throws, he finally stopped. It was never discussed; no apologies were ever uttered.
When I read this experience aloud during one of our writing group sessions, I was greeted with unconditional compassion, empathy, and support. No, there was nothing I could say or do that would make me feel unwelcome and certainly not “wrong.” The freedom to express this painful experience finally freed me from the shame and guilt I had shouldered for over four decades.
And this time, almost ten years later, those same feelings of unconditional support consumed me as I sat with Gloria in the first floor of her apartment, where her office resides. As I gave one last look around the room before leaving our meeting, I took note of the custom-built loft rising above the living room, draped in sheer white curtains sweeping across to the massive windows below. “I had this loft built for feminists to stay when they are visiting New York City,” Gloria said. “In fact, I am leaving this entire apartment in my will to future feminists who need a home while traveling here.” In response, I must have let out a short gasp or sigh at the very thought of Gloria leaving this world, my world. “Although,” she quickly added, perhaps after picking up on my reaction, “I do plan to live to one hundred, since I have too many deadlines to meet.”