09/04/2026
A person post.
Gloria Steinem lived just two blocks from the gallery, and we saw her on occasion. Very hard to imagine a more impactful or important American life in the 20th century,. Arguably the most important of my generation, and the immediate generations before. With her calm, loving, rational, soft voice - and those tinted aviator glasses - she summoned fire and power when needed to advocate for equality among all humanity. Not radical rights, but simple equality that was full, real - and economic, social, political, and biological.
I was impacted personally when in my mother left our family in my young teens. Difficult still now, even knowing she had no real other choices in the late 1970s, in her circumstance.
We’ve had opportunity now to all hear again Steinem’s voice and words. It is as touching to hear about her own falling in love, a few times in a lifetime - and with men - and the power of those falls. Also the fleeting impermanence of it all. And leading. She did not want to lead, but did indeed. She created a movement, and a publication with a powerful voice. She said she preferred to light the torches of others so that we all could lead.
Go forth!
A real Smith College girl! (My own is now 23, and wish her all the inspiration and power Gloria Steinem’s spirit can embolden within her and all Smith grads.)
