COMMENTARY

Gloria Steinem’s mission connects women across generations

By MARY SANCHEZ

The Kansas City Star

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Sixty-five years separate Ali Lee and the subject of her book report for advanced English.

Ali is 12. She dots her i’s with circles, likes playing basketball, volleyball and soccer and aspires to learn the piano. Her favorite colors are pink and green.

Ali handed Gloria Steinem her homework, correctly sensing the famous woman she had studied would enjoy reading the finished report.

So it was ponytailed pluck that offered the best demonstration during Steinem’s visit to Kansas City a few days ago.

Steinem was here to support connections between women across generations. That was the topic, and Steinem a keynote speaker, of a women’s symposium on aging sponsored by UMKC Women’s Center and its Women’s Council.

A longtime friend of Ali’s mother was an organizer. The seventh-grader joined our dinner group with Steinem Friday. Then she attended Saturday’s events, flanked by her mother and grandmother.

She heard the pointed exchange where Steinem explained that anyone, regardless of gender, could be a feminist. They simply have to support equality for women. The explanation was given to a panelist, an accomplished woman who needed the definition, having absorbed the absurdity that the term itself is pejorative.

Their conversations didn’t travel this far, but Steinem would be impressed with Ali’s brave attitude about her family’s “bad year.” Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer (post-treatment, she has an all-clear). An uncle died. And her father was laid off and now must live in Texas for his new job.

All are elements that can later outline life choices, something Steinem addressed in reply to an audience question. She noted that her own mother’s fragile mental state meant that she was put in the role of caretaker sooner than most women experience.

From there, many know her story, co-founding the National Women’s Political Caucus and Ms. magazine in an era when women were expected to write of recipes and cosmetics, not politics, sex, domestic violence, homosexuality and many other topics that, thankfully, are no longer off-limits.

Steinem continues to spend her days challenging norms of hierarchy and gender. For women and girls, to be so authentic too often still draws ridicule by grating against societal pressures.

Steinem asked the audience to spend time with those older and younger, as too much emphasis goes to the middle years of life, diminishing the contributions of seniors and children. Ali helped more than a few women complete that assignment.

And her book report earned an A. She wants to be a journalist, a writer, like Steinem. May she be the sort who retains a sense of her younger self, the girl who adored pink elephants and signed her name with a flourished dot above the i.