Gloria Steinem, My Daughters and Me

by Nancy Mills

My older daughter Carrie spent two years working for the MS Foundation for Women in New York, organizing their public outreach for Take Our Daughters to Work Day. During that time, she met the woman who helped to start it all, the co-founder of MS Magazine and the MS Foundation, Gloria Steinem. Carrie was inspired by this woman who embodied intelligent dedication to the cause of women's rights and New York sophistication - a great role model for a young career woman in the big city.

Now, a few years later, my younger daughter, Lauren, has also been touched by Gloria Steinem. Lauren is studying public policy and social work at Columbia University. She's working as an intern for a non-profit dedicated to preventing rape and sexual assault. She also volunteers for another group working against human trafficking.

It was in this last context that she met Gloria Steinem this week. Gloria attended an event against trafficking with about 20 other women, lending her name and her time to the cause. Listening to Lauren describe meeting this beautiful and committed feminist, I was brought back to my own days as a twenty-something working for a women's rights newspaper in Connecticut.

It was the 70's and I was editing a statewide paper called Alert which published the votes of legislators on issues important to women, like equal pay, child care and the Equal Rights Amendment. We were going to have a fundraiser and Gloria Steinem, a friend of our founder Sheila Tobias, had agreed to come to speak. My job was to drive to Manhattan, go to the offices of MS Magazine and give Gloria a ride to Westport. What an opportunity for an aspiring journalist and feminist! It was exciting but I was also a bit intimidated.

But as it turned out, Gloria Steinem was easy to talk to and was actually somewhat shy. She asked me for "protection" from the crowds of women who would want to talk to her one-on-one. She was generous with her time, gave a great speech and shook many hands. But she was human. She really didn't like crowds!

So now Gloria has touched all of our lives, both of my daughters' and mine. It's one of those unplanned happenings in life that seem so right. My daughers and the daughters of countless other Boomers will build on the legacy that Gloria Steinem represents.

Today, Gloria Steinem leads an active, creative and "free to be me" life after 60 (she's actually in her 70's now!). I like this quote from a Washington Post story that I found online, where Gloria describes what it's like to give up playing all the roles that society demands of women:

"Well, what happens is that when you get to be 60, and the role is over, you go back to that clear-eyed, shit-free, I-know-what-I-want, I-know-what-I-think, 9- or 10-year-old girl. Only now--you have your own apartment."