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WARNING: This column has some relation to Highway 61, lifeblood of our lives and economy. First, the author lives here as do about five thousand women and men whose lives are better for the efforts of Steinem and other feminists, men and women. Second, Steinem brought her message to Duluth in 1981; that is the start of our Highway. Third Steinem is part of our bridge generation whose task became the liberation of all of us. If this violates your expectations, please wait ‘til next week.
Today’s column was inspired by choosing Gloria Steinem’s memoir, My Life on the Road, as an e-book from the Metropolitan public library group, MELSA. (Arrowhead Libraries don’t have it yet—or again.) Her life as writer and organizer parallels our bridge generation of those growing up in the 40’s and 50’s.
An example: Myrna was in a group of eight bright women at Grinnell College in 1963, our senior year. They talked of what next. One said she was going to Michigan Law School. Said another, “Why Nancy, whatever for?” We had been recruited to a college that was proud that one-third of Grinnell men married Grinnell women. That’s what we did. Over the next 60 years, we’ve all had to manage living in a changing world.
Steinem offed another example of the ethos we grew up with: “[In 1956] …when I asked a man in the Smith admissions office why [there were no African American women in our class], he said, ‘We have to be very careful about educating Negro girls because there are not enough educated Negro men to go around.”
What changes? My fall, 1968, law school class had 18 women, the one before, eleven, and the one after, 30. Now about of half of all law students are women. Even schools of engineering and architecture are no longer white male citadels. Note also that our incoming 1968 law class had four men of color. Now 38%+ are nonwhite. Our country is better for including the talents of those previously kept out. But it has not been easy, and much work remains. Toward that end, I bring you some of Steinem’s poignant prose.
“[W}e each talked about our own experience of seeing talent wasted by imaginary limits of race, gender, class, sexuality, and so on—including the prison of ‘masculinity’ that limits men.”
“When people ask me why I still have hope and energy after all these years, I always say Because I Travel.”
“Hate generalizes, love specifies. That’s what makes going on the road so important. lt definitely specifies.”
“Whether by dowry murders in India, honor killings in Egypt, or domestic violence in the United States, records show that women ae most likely to be beaten or killed at home and by men they know.”
“When psychologist Robert Seidenberg studied women in such changeless homes, he named the result “the trauma of eventlessness.” That sounds like Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique.
Her two-year time in India, “…was the first time I witnessed the ancient and modern magic of groups in which anyone may speak in turn, everyone must listen, and consensus is more important than time. I had no idea that such talking circles had been a common form of governance for most of human history.”
“I could see that because the Ghandians listened, they were listened to. Because they depended on generosity, they created generosity…. This was the practical organizing wisdom they taught me.”
“…[T]he most important discovery of my life … [i]s the portable community of talking circles; groups that gather with all five senses and allow consciousness to change.”
“…[P]eople in the same room understand and empathize with each other in a way that isn’t possible on the page or screen.” …. “I hope … you get hooked on the revolutionary act of listening to others.”
“Altogether, I can’t imagine technology replacing bookstores completely any more than movies about a country replace going there. Wherever I go, bookstores are still the closest thing to a town square.”
“If you find yourself drawn to an event, go. The universe is telling you something.”
Steinem writes extensively about a 1977 Houston event. In front of 18,000 international witnesses, 2,000 delegates spent three days debating and adopting a platform that, fulfilling the worst fears of the Phyllis Schlaflys, outlined an agenda that has been mostly adopted. And the present culture wars reflect that.
If you want to pursue that important event, search for “National Women’s Conference 1977.” One of the behind-the-scenes keys to that event’s success was, I suspect, Arvonne Fraser. Jimmy Carter had appointed her as Coordinator, Office of Women in Development, U.S. Agency for International Development. (I am lucky to have worked for Arvonne and Don Fraser in their Washington office in 1965. Several years after I left, the men started doing their own typing.)
The keynote speaker In Houston was Barbara Jordan, first black woman Representative from the South and Watergate impeachment hero. Maya Angelou’s poem, “To Form a More Perfect Union,” contained this: “We promise to accept nothing less than justice for every woman.” Coretta Scott King finished that Conference. “Let this message go forth from Houston and spread all over this land. There is a new force, a new understanding, a new sisterhood against all injustice that has been born here. We will not be divided and we will not be defeated again.” May it be so near Highway 61.
(If you found this a bit preachy, wait ‘til next week, sorta’ like living in Brooklyn in the 50’s).
Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, judge, and mediator, serving as judge from 1997-2010. He and his wife moved here in 2016. He likes to remember that he was a Minnesota Super Family Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Now he is among the most vulnerable to viruses. Steve really enjoys doing weddings, the one thing a retired judge can do without appointment by the Chief Justice. He writes this column to learn more about his new home area and to share his learnings with others—and to indulge his curiosities. Bouquets and brickbats to the editor or stevealdrich41@gmail.com. Copyright Stephen C. Aldrich and News Herald, 2022
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