My Life on the Road

Photo credit: UBU ♛ via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Gloria Steinem was working pretty hard to promote this book a few months ago and it intrigued me enough to order it from the library. By the time it finally came in, I was swamped with other things I wanted to read and wondering if I really wanted to take the time to read Steinem’s book. I checked Goodreads, where readers had given it an average of 4.15 stars out of 636 ratings and that was enough to settle it for me.

This book is so good and I’m so glad I read it!

First of all, it’s only about 250 pages, so it doesn’t take long to read. Second of all, it’s really good!

Steinem’s name was familiar to me, but I can’t say I knew much about her before reading this book, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is the value Steinem places in traveling and talking to just about everyone who crosses her path.

She starts with her childhood, which was spent mostly on the road. At the time she resented their lack of stability, but once she graduated from college, she realized how much of her father’s values she had inherited. From self-employment to spending most of her time on the road. From NYC to India to Native American reservations, Steinem has seen it all.

But Steinem isn’t your typical sightseer. She doesn’t measure the success of a trip by what famous monuments she’s seen, but rather by who she’s talked to. She doesn’t own a car or have a driver’s license, which means she takes a lot of taxis. She has her own version of Taxi Cab Confessions, but it’s not about the other passengers of the car, it’s about the taxi drivers she’s talked to and the experiences they’ve had. From students to transgenders to one guy taking a year-long sabbatical from all forms of media. Steinem has had the privilege of talking to people from all walks of life and I’m pretty sure it’s blown her mind at least a few times. Just reading about it blew my mind.

Steinem has always been a public women’s rights figure, and that certainly comes across in the book, but she didn’t get there by accident. She traveled to places where people were meeting and discussing the women’s rights movement. She gave speeches in front of hundreds of people (despite her fear of public speaking), followed by discussions that she says were much more valuable than the speeches themselves. She fought editors to write stories about women and their struggles, and when the editors refused, she founded her own magazine.

Fighting for equal rights for women has been as much a journey for Steinem as anything else has been. She spent decades of her life fighting for what she considered to be a new way of life, and only after many years of writing and traveling and speaking did she realize there’s nothing new about equality.

It’s no secret that, despite the strides society has made, white men remain firmly at the top of society. They’ve told us it’s always been that way because that’s what they want us to think. It gives their position more authority, but it’s a lie.

In her many travels over the years, Steinem has befriended Native Americans and has been accepted into their communities. She learns that women were treated as equals with men, but they did not occupy a higher status. They had considerably more freedom than their white counterparts, and the work they did had as much value as the work performed by men.

Steinem learned that most Native American societies were matrilineal not matriarchal. The difference is matrilineal means men went to live with the families of their wives and possessions were passed down through the female line. It does not mean the women had more power than the men. This kind of balanced society has existed before and it can exist again and the idea of placing equal value on different tasks has completely changed my entire view of the world.

What did you guys read this week? Anything that pleasantly surprised you? Anything that changed your perception of the world around you? I want to hear all about it!