BLERD WITH A BOOK
Hiya! I hope you're keeping safe and healthy. Like everyone else, I am still at home, but because it's autumn, I'm almost finished with my first virtual school quarter (which is why I haven't been active all that much). So, as school begins to wind down, I'll be continuing with my established mental health routine of comfort reading-- on my downtime, of course-- and writing about those comfort books on here. TITLE: My Life on the Road AUTHOR: Gloria Steinem PUBLISHER & DATE: Random House 2016 (originally published in Hardcover in 2015) PAGES: 284 GENRE: Memoir; Feminism BRIEF SUMMARY: Legendary activist, feminist, and itinerant organizer Gloria Steinem shares her story of personal growth and how it dovetailed with the growth of a revolutionary movement for equality-- and how a lifetime spent on the road, complete with surprising encounters with a robust cast of characters, from literary figures to total strangers, that yielded unexpected but profound truths, shaped both. CONTENT WARNING: The following edition of STAY-AT-HOME READS contains mentions of racism, bigotry, sexism, reproductive choice, abortion, among other sensitive topics. Moreover, this post also contains some dialogue on Election Week 2020 and how it affected my mental health. If any of these topics trigger you, please take the appropriate precautions before reading. In addition, if you or someone you know is struggling mentally and emotionally, please visit Half of Us.com, call SAMHSA's National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357), or visit SAMHSA.org for more assistance and resources. Here's a fun fact about me: I have anxiety. In fact, anxiety has been a part of my life for over three years now, and during that span of time I've found that it's become slightly more difficult to deal with it. Although I do what I can to manage it and go on with my life as normally as I possibly can, anxiety gets the best of me now and again. Sometimes, it can feel like an acute, intense form of stress that steadily builds and builds depending on the circumstances I find myself in, whether it be school, work, home, or out with friends and acquaintances. Other times, I have had terrifying anxiety attacks that have cost me much-needed sleep, physical and emotional strength, and peace of mind. But, it's not because of the attack itself; it has more to do with my fear of having another one and the potential for it to be worse than the previous one. Come to think of it, I put more work into curbing any negative influence anxiety may have on my life than, say, school or work. If that sounds like a lot to you, that's because it is. Coping with the symptoms can be a serious challenge; just ask any person with an anxiety disorder. Personally, the difficulty level has only shot up for me (and many others, I imagine) since California implemented stricter "Safer at Home" measures in the hopes of reducing the aggressive, ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Being at home for a long stretch of time has caused me to become more aware-- well, more aware than usual-- of how anxiety affects me. Needless to say, the combination of a pandemic, the summertime Black Lives Matter protests that resulted from the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and retreating further into the perilous world of the Internet now that I'm at home has only caused anxiety to tighten its grip on me instead of relaxing it. To make matters worse, we were also in the middle of a presidential election season that somehow managed to be more exhausting than the last one. In short: most of America may be unemployed, but 2020 is working overtime. I say all of this because, on (what would usually would have been) Election Day, a.k.a. November 3rd, I started reading Gloria Steinem's memoir My Life on the Road, going against my original reading plan for this book. When I got the book in late September, I was already a hundred pages into N.K. Jemisin's sci-fi novel The City We Became, which I'd heard nothing but good reviews for upon its release. But, due to time constraints, I had put reading The City We Became on hold, with the hopes of finishing the book after the virtual Fall school quarter. Then, Election Day came-- and with it Anxiety, my old friend. Though I had already voted by mail, the familiar, soul-crushing feeling of dread was still weighing heavily on me. I didn't sleep that well in the days leading up to Nov. 3rd, so I was tired when the sun came up. Catching up on the sleep I missed was out of the cards thanks to my racing mind and constant election news and alerts from my phone, my television, and my school group chats. So, to combat the anxiety, I searched for any sort of election counterprogramming I could latch onto; anything to escape the heavy restlessness that sat atop my chest with no plans to leave anytime soon. Enter Steinem's memoir. Over the years, I've found reading to be a good way to cope with anxiety, so I fell back on what I knew. It didn't matter what book I read, just as long as it kept me from refreshing my news app or watching livestreams of the ongoing election count. What started as a way to cope with Election anxiety turned into something unexpected. Upon finishing the first chapter, I immediately decided to continue reading once I had some downtime in my busy schedule. Putting The City We Became on hold didn't bother me so much anymore. My Life on the Road, Steinem's first book in over twenty years and the seventh book she has written, is my first introduction to Steinem proper. I got an informal introduction to the renowned activist through Comedy Central's Drunk History, a show where comedians get absolutely wasted and attempt to tell stories about significant events and people in (mostly) American history, which devoted a segment-- you can watch it above-- to a significant flashpoint, for better or worse, in Steinem's life: the time where she donned a Playboy Bunny costume to write a revealing expose of the Playboy Club. Though the segment (which you can watch above) doesn't breach the aftermath of Steinem's searing article, it does attempt to position this moment as the moment when Steinem became a noteworthy figure in the feminist movement. However, as funny as it is, the Drunk History segment doesn't fully capture Steinem's journey to becoming the famous activist, feminist, and organizer she's recognized as today. If anything, it arrived at one of the many pit stops Steinem made on that journey, one that her memoir recounts in great, moving detail. If you do happen to pick up this book, hoping that Steinem has devoted at least a few pages to her time as an undercover Playboy Bunny, I hate to tell you but you're going to be disappointed; the Playboy Club story isn't given any time in the book, and that's probably for the best. After all, you can only glean so much about a person from one legendary story, and even said story is incapable of capturing all the nuance and complexity of said person. Instead, Steinem's memoir is a surreal collage of incredibly different stories that would feel tonally out of place in the hands of a lesser-skilled writer. In Steinem's hands, these stories, from the people in them--some ordinary, some famous-- to the places she finds herself at, serve a dual purpose. My Life on the Road has been critically acclaimed for being a snapshot of the rise of second-wave feminism; a few of the reviews I read online and some acclaim blurbs printed in the book give it high praise for being a first-person account of the women's movement, but I'd argue that the entire book isn't this. Yes, readers find Steinem taking part in various events that directly or indirectly impact the progressive movement for equality, whether as a guest speaker or a participant, but the stories in the book aren't entirely about second-wave feminism. Rather, Steinem's stories put the focus on her own personal development via traveling and talking with strangers. The wisdom she has gained from the likes of cabdrivers (a unique encounter with a female taxi driver with pictures of her five ex-lovers, the Virgin Mary, and Lord Krishna is one of the many highlights from a chapter devoted to Steinem's disinterest in driving), airplane passengers, flight attendants, fellow activists and organizers, strangers at rural diners, and truck drivers have not only shaped her progressive beliefs, they have also shaped her as a person-- especially as someone who has lived a life in constant motion. "Taking to the road-- by which I mean letting the road take you--," Steinem writes, "changed who I thought I was." This quote is evident throughout the book. As I read, I could envision myself traveling on the road with Steinem, something that still strikes me as surreal because I am not a traveling kind of person. I'm a homebody; I prefer being around my books, my comics, my nerdy posters, and my video games (though I haven't played them in a while). During the pandemic, being at home a lot hasn't really bothered me. In a way, the world is on pause, and that has given me a lot of time to do some self-reflecting and soul-searching. Reading Steinem's book made me want to get out the house--which I never thought I'd ever say-- and start traveling myself. My Life on the Road makes a strong case for traveling as both a sort of education, where the road is your textbook and the various people you encounter and places you visit are the teachers you need. In a way, Steinem's memoir is that famous Ferris Bueller quote personified: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. The wisdom and insight you gain in life can't always be gained from a classroom, virtual or in-person; sometimes, you just need to pack your bags and head on the road. This is true for Steinem, as the wisdom she is passing down to readers was passed down to her from various people in her personal life, notably her parents, and her years-long activist work, including Wilma Mankiller, a close friend of Steinem's who became the first woman to become principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. In fact, the final chapter of this book focuses mostly on Steinem and Wilma's friendship, as well as Wilma's tragic passing in 2010 and how Steinem grieves the loss. My Life on the Road is a deft balance of autobiography and first-hand account of history in the making, but the book is most effective when Steinem talks about the people, places, and events that shaped her and constantly made her re-think the things she had learned about herself, America, and people overall. Speaking of history in the making, I had no idea how many times Steinem found herself in the middle of historical events we still talk about today. While her time on the road during various presidential campaign trails, from Nixon and Kennedy (both JFK and Bobby) to Obama and Clinton (which revealed some surprising insights about women, marriage, and how we perceive women with large public platforms) as a reporter are intriguing to read, it is her recounting of being in Washington in 1963 that stands out of all her politically-centric stories. That year, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famously oft-quoted "I Have a Dream" speech in front of a massive crowd of people who embraced King's words and cheered rapturously. What people might not know is that King delivered his speech after being urged by Mahalia Jackson, a Black activist whom Steinem happened to be standing next to in the large crowd at Washington, to tell the people surrounding King "about the dream." The rest, as they say, is history, but Steinem's recounting of this event reinforces a common theme throughout the book: history is often made by the people most overlooked or underestimated in society. Regarding its status as an account of the women's movement, My Life on the Road is less about Steinem's impact on the movement and more about the individuals who helped give the movement its legs, even if they weren't immortalized in history books or International Women's Day social media posts. Famous names are dropped, like Shirley Chisholm (the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first woman to seek the nomination for President of the United States from one of the two major political parties) and Betty Friedan (the author of the much-debated The Feminine Mystique, which Steinem shares her personal objections about in the book, along with thoughts about Friedan herself, notably her seeming lack of solidarity with Steinem and other women fighting for equality), but Steinem focuses on the smaller groups that have organized in the name of equality. From college student movements that center BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and the disabled to Indigenous organizations fighting for greater political representation, Steinem's encounters with these groups not only help her improve as an organizer, a feminist, and a public speaker, but also as a person who devotes herself to conversing with an open mind and a willingness to listen and be challenged. Much like the female taxi driver with all the pictures on her dashboard, Steinem writes these groups with just as much esteem as any noteworthy feminist or politician or progressive celebrity; to her, it's the small organizations, lone-wolf activists, or daring individuals willing to court controversy that give the movement its lifeblood. Their impact will affect society in the long run, not the politicians who sign a reform bill into law or condemn any kind of -ism at a press conference. At a time where people often look to progressive-leaning celebrities for guidance on contributing to or reaffirmation of believing in pressing social justice causes (which I completely understand), I think it's important to remember the smaller organizations who are doing work all around us and to connect and work with to build lasting systemic change. Steinem understands the importance of that and even advocates for it in the book. With a warm, witty, and welcoming voice, Steinem forges a close and precious bond with the reader, one that creates a sense of honesty and openness; in a way, readers feel like they can tell Steinem anything, largely because she has opened her heart and mind up to them. Throughout My Life on the Road, you can practically hear the excitement in Steinem's voice as she passes down the wisdom she has learned over the decades, but that voice is somewhat tempered by a maturity that can only come from a life of loss, hardship, and even anger (Steinem talks about her relationship with anger quite a bit in the book and ties that to how women are told to respond emotionally-- or lack thereof-- in society). Despite this, nothing can seem to curb Steinem's love for the road and the joy in the insightfully, soul-nourishing lessons the road-- and the people on it-- offers her. For anyone at home looking to satisfy their need for travel during this unprecedented moment in human history, then pick up My Life on the Road. You'll be surprised by what the road can teach you, even though you're at home. Skip, Wait or Recommend: Recommend Favorite Quote: "In the same way that individual women are often underestimated, a movement of women is also underestimated, but the truth is that, if people realize someone is willing to talk about these deep and daily concerns, they show up." Other Books to Read by This Author: Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983) This Blerd is Online (and at Home)!
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