In an essay, ‘In Praise of Women’s Bodies’, stretch marks and Caesarian incisions are contrasted with the scars and wounds of war which are traditionally occasions of male pride:
Nothing seems too trivial for her attention. Her odyssey, though that of an outstandingly able woman, is at the same time that of every woman of her times writ large and articulate.
Steinem’s main strength is her ability to respond quickly and warmly to any immediate situation and, by means of that response, to grasp and demonstrate the larger, often revelatory implications of her own and others’ experience. It is a sort of odyssey towards political awareness, which is to say, self-awareness: the two are always interconnected and interdependent. The point, Ms Steinem, is this: we poor benighted creatures on this side of the Atlantic have never had the chance to read you before and that, on the evidence of this impressively rich collection, has been our loss.Īnd yet O utr ageo u s Ac t s a nd Ever yd a y R e b e lli o n s i s a book, as much epic as it is autobiography.
Having admitted in the introduction to this edition of her collected journalism that activism is not altogether to blame, she comes to the rather defensive conclusion, ‘What is so sacred about a long and continuous piece of writing?’ Good question, on the face of it. Co-founder of both New Y o r k and M s magazines, she had earned her living mainly as a journalist and, latterly, by lecturing. She has been much too busy campaigning – mainly for feminism, although Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern have also earned her support.
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