Gloria Steinem: A Clarion Call in Our Public Square

MIAMI — Gloria Steinem stirred souls in a room of women, young to old, speaking of the looming election and how much it matters for us.

She reminded me of author Virginia Woolf, with her brilliant clarity spoken in a low voice to a room of Cambridge, Mass., college women in 1928. But Steinem sprang from humble roots, in Toledo, Ohio. Born in 1934 (you do the math), Steinem looked hip on campus at Florida International University. My mother, professor Judith Stiehm, was in that room. For a shining hour, Steinem elegantly fused generations.

As a leader, speaker and writer on the front lines of social change since the 1970s, Steinem stands as a survivor and storyteller of the long way we've come, maybe, only to face an assault on reproductive rights right to the top of the Republican ticket.

The age of extremism is especially hostile to women's health care, reproductive freedom and human rights, Steinem said. We are in their sights, but we can't go back. Movements are meant to move forward, or else they wither.

In the nicest way, Steinem was saying: Don't just look up to me. Go out there, and fight battles of your own. Build on what I, and others, have made. But charismatic leaders are, like good help, hard to find. There's no successor in sight for lighting the path in 2012.

Yet democracy almost depends on civil disobedience now and then. And there's the vote. Women suffered for suffrage. In this election, in this economy, women's well being and equity, in private and public, are on the line.

The feminist icon urged her audience to vote in self-defense for the pro-choice Barack Obama, who signed pay equity into law. Women have a place in his world.

This brought Steinem to a parable of a Missouri Senate race that Republican John Danforth narrowly won against a progressive woman candidate, Harriett Woods, years ago. He brought to Washington a young black conservative aide named Clarence Thomas. Soon, Thomas was running the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — or, should I say, dismantling it during the Reagan years.

The rest is history. As president, George H.W. Bush appointed Thomas to succeed civil rights champion Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. Anita Hill, a law school professor, came forward with plausible accounts of sexual harassment with Thomas as her boss. Senators had trouble comprehending her story under the bright lights. And it was a cruel day when that angry young man took Marshall's seat.

Then it came time for Bush's son, George W. Bush, to claim his place in the scheme — and I do mean scheme — of things. In 2000, the Florida deadlock led the Bush v. Gore case to be heard by the Supreme Court in the wake of the presidential election. The high court handed down a 5-4 decision; what a surprise. One man, one vote, after all. If not for an obscure Missouri election long ago, we'd be a more just country. Sisterhood is powerful, yet so is 'patriarchy," as she said.

Come Nov. 6, Steinem, my mother and I hope to see more "one woman, one vote" democracy. Young ladies, help make that happen. There was a lot of talent blooming in that room.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

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