Goddess bless Gloria Steinem!
I especially love her quote about plastic surgery and what I've heard called the "frankengina:"
"It is part of an obsession with youth, but it is also pushed – and this is much more reprehensible to me – by pornography, in which women are made to look like children. What has sent me over the edge is this operation in which the labia minora is tucked in. That's what they think women should look like. It's horrifying. It normalises abnormality." Ms. Steinem
Her mention of the bunny suit's fit made me think of my own Spanx swim suit. Why do I care so much about my weight gain that I find it necessary to push all my fat upwards out of the top of a one-piece suit that take 10 minutes to squeeze my fleshidy flesh into?
And I appreciate her articulation of, ""The idea that women are supposed to be the means of reproduction. If they – I mean 'they' in the larger sense: patriarchy, nationalism, whatever you want to call the mega-structure – didn't want to control reproduction, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in."
I can never quite explain my feminist view on reproduction to others who question where feminism fits into having babies (aka "haters"). We should never be made to feel like it's the inevitable goal for all women. We have that inner "shit detector" she mentions, and some of us are prepared to use it.
Seeing Gloria interviewed recently on "Chelsea, Lately" renews my hope that younger women will know who she is and learn from these pioneering women's actions for our collective future.
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