Gloria Marie Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, March 25, 1934.  If ever there was a place and a time for a feminist light to be blown out, it would have been in Toledo in 1934.  Gloria, first of all, was a believer in the rights of women.  Secondly, she was a writer.  A gifted woman with the ability to see it all for what it really was.  A courageous woman who stood for what she believed in during a time which, was extremely anti-woman.

When Gloria was ten, her father and mother divorced, due to the mental instability of her mother, who, as Gloria put it, could not hold a job due to her mental illness. 

Her mother also did not receive appropriate care from the doctors.  She was, after all, female and poor.  Though Gloria did not blame her father for leaving, he never offered much financial help for Gloria and her mother, further aggravating the situation. 

Steinem  was young when she realized the scope of social injustice.  That in fact, there were differences in the way she and her mother were treated as compared to moneyed people.  That in fact, life is full of injustices and many times, women pay for them. 

She watched her mother suffer and go from a well read, intelligent woman to a shattered, attention-blown, insecure pauper.

Let’s never make the mistake of thinking that revolutionary women begin in moneyed homes with well manicured moms and lawns. 

Gloria Steinem, through her writing career, brought to light the truth, that very intelligent and capable women are often born into rather tragic situations and their’s is a tough road.  Often resembling something out of a third world scenario. 

She actively supported the Equal Rights Amendment.  As well, she wrote to bring to light the many and unnecessarily discriminatory practices in the United States, both socially and politically. 

She co-founded many groups which supported women’s issues.  Women’s Action Alliance, Coalition of Labor Union Women and Ms. Foundation for Women, just to name a few.

Gloria Steinem actively participated in public demonstrations and worked alongside people like Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Amy Carter and Coretta Scott King and Cesar Chavez.

While Gloria once was affiliated with the CIA, and was deemed the poster girl of the women’s movement, she was an inclusive character and managed to get along with just about anyone.  In this respect, she was extra gifted.  The women’s movement did have aspects of extremism and women who were very extreme. 

Women like, Judith Brown and Shulamith Firestone who took a more scientific perspective of the old patriarchal system, didn’t have quite the appeal that Steinem had. 

And let’s face it, if you want to change something in America, you have to appeal to those one dimensional sorts who are known as “society”. 

Gloria Steinem has done wonders for women in America, simply by lending her voice.  Still Gloria’s later life has not been a bed of well manicured roses.  She’s dealt with illness and the loss of her husband, of whom she was rather fond.

I’m not quite the politician that Gloria Steinem was.  But I’ll always admire her, be in awe of her.  Frankly, I’m really glad that there was a Gloria Steinem.  She was and continues to be a credit to the female gender.  A breeze of hope which came at the right time and made a lasting impact on a country, which was far too chauvinistic.