I bought this book in a hurry.
"Do you have any paperback versions in stock?" I asked the cashier at Barnes & Noble. She said My Life on the Road wasn't coming out in paperback until summer. I was running out of time, so I bit the bullet and paid more than I would have liked for the hardcover book. I couldn't risk not having it that night.
Before my current job, I worked for a prep school. The campus is gorgeous, the students have such bright futures, and I still love my old co-workers. Scientists, writers, politicians, and more often come to the school to speak for the community, and I was on my way to see Gloria Steinem speak in person for the very first time.
There was no book signing on her schedule, but what if she held an impromptu one after her talk? What if I could hang out with her for a minute, tell her that hers was a household name in my childhood home? What if she wanted to jot down a note for me in a book jacket? I couldn't not have that book.
Steinem's talk was incredible. I fought the urge to agree out loud when she made certain points. She so expertly shut down male privilege when a self-identified 19-year-old white male Republican student said, "I think I'm in the same boat today that you were when you were a young woman and nobody listened to YOU. Do you think we now live in a time when people can't voice their opinion without an uproar from liberals?" Steinem chose to explain one of the myriad ways in which he is different from her younger female self, citing statistics regarding an individual's risk of being sexually assaulted or raped and how those odds differ between men and women, and what it's like to move through the world with that knowledge. Next, she addressed his concerns re: people having other opinions. "What you're talking about is free speech. Nobody is trying to take away your right to free speech," she said, "they're just getting mad at you." (Cue eruption of applause.)
To wrap it up a bit, there was no book signing after the talk. I didn't get to meet Gloria Steinem. But I was still glad I had bought the book – I'd scribbled notes from her talk inside the jacket. Things like, "equal wage = economic stimulus," "bodily integrity (not just reproductive justice)," and "freedom for men: boys must be raised to raise children, nurturing and loving." (And as an aside – lots of other people brought their copies of the book to the talk too, which was held in the campus chapel. Seeing all those books lined up in the little pew shelves instead of bibles sure did tickle me.)
I'm happy I saw her speak before reading the book. I could hear it all being read in her voice – like Vanessa Redgrave, without the British accent. The book was a good stand-in for the intimate conversation with her I craved. The smattering of photographs included from her personal collection made it feel even more so.
I read this book a little bit at a time during my lunch breaks. It was a good gear shift for me mentally in the middle of the day; before bed I like to read novels, books that won't get me fired up or particularly inspired. But at lunchtime, My Life on the Road was energizing, thought-provoking. A tome full of lessons she's gained from a lifetime of travel, Steinem offers up her memories in a way that I just loved. A short introduction, then a list of anecdotes – seemingly mismatched beads strung together by shared recurring themes of intersectionality, surprise, and heartache. Throughout it all, Steinem is openly, continually checking the assumptions she's made about others through the decades.
Steinem, a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter, does write about Secretary Clinton more than once, suddenly making me wonder about the timing of this book's publication. But Steinem's dependably relaxed and compelling prose tamped down suspicious thoughts that the book might be a shill for Hillary's presidential campaign. (I'm already a Hillary supporter, btw.)
A lasting thought I took away from My Life on the Road was how little of my country I've actually seen or learned about. There's so much history out there – and under our very feet in western Massachusetts' ancient agriculture mounds – of the Native people who thrived in this country before the arrival of white Europeans (and whose ancestors are systematically oppressed to this day). Kristie is proud of her family's Cherokee heritage, but admittedly doesn't know much about it. Reading about Gloria's experiences and relationships with Native organizers and activists made me wonder how we can teach our future children about the heritage gained from their Southern mother's side.
I remember being in the Christiansborg ruins (built in 1167) underneath Copenhagen, Denmark by myself once, and wondering to myself that America's history was nothing compared to these old stone structures. That was my ignorance, and the absence of America's incredibly history (long before it was called America) from my classrooms. I didn't know that there are structures older than Stonehenge in our country, that there are people alive today who can trace their origins back a hundred thousand years in our country – not until I read this book at age 28. It was the most painfully beautiful kind of called-out feeling, like walking into the too-bright sunshine after being in a dark movie theater for too long, or a flower opening for the first time. I'm so sorry I didn't know before. I'm so glad I know now.
What I highlighted
"[Traveling by road] is right up there with life-threatening emergencies and truly mutual sex as a way of being fully alive in the present."
"I was traveling not only for stories, but also to sell ads to reluctant makers of cars who were convinced that men made that buying decision; to explain to makers of women's products why Ms. didn't publish fashion, beauty, or cooking articles that praised and promoted the products of advertisers." (<-- Definitely has me thinking about the ads I host and sponsored posts I write on this blog.)
"If an audience is half women and half men, women worry about the reaction of the men around them. But in one that is two-thirds women and one-third men, women respond as they would on their own, and men hear women speaking honestly." (<-- the best explanation of the value of women's colleges I've ever heard, and certainly exemplative of my time at Mount Holyoke, and I'm sure Steinem's time at Smith.)
"A writer's greatest reward is naming something unnamed that many people are feeling. A writer's greatest punishment is being misunderstood. The same words can do both."
"Thinking about our schooling in different decades and parts of the country, all three of us in that kitchen discover that we were taught more about ancient Greece and Rome than about the history of the land we live on. We learned about the pyramid builders of Egypt, but not the pyramid builders of the Mississippi River."
"Home is a symbol of the self. Caring for a home is caring for one's self."
*This post contains an affiliate link.
