CSotD: Gloria Feminae
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Emmerson’s double-tribute last week set me to thinking about life and death and whatnot.
I already had it in mind, because one of my dearest friends died recently, and her death reminded me of how, in Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana described the death overboard of a crew member on his ship:
(A)t sea, the man is near you,— at your side,— you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea— to use a homely but expressive phrase— you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb.
We had walked our dogs together each morning for the past six years, and seen each other often on other occasions, so, yes, I miss her at every turn, and it is like losing a limb. And yet we were both 76, and so it was a surprise but not a shock.
A shock was when my little brother was killed in an automobile accident at 17, putting my whole family into a tailspin. Or when a college friend, a superb athlete still in excellent shape, died of a heart attack at 49, and we all said “Too young, too soon.”
Dolly Parton and Tim Curry were each 80 years old. Their deaths are sad, and we can miss them, but it hardly makes sense to say “too young, too soon.” They had plenty of time and, what’s more, they used it well.
There was a point at which I realized that, since I’m no longer young, it’s not surprising that the famous people — musicians, authors, actors, politicians — who shaped my life as I was growing up are getting to the edge and it’s beginning to be more of a surprise to find that one of them is still alive than to hear that one of them has died.
Yet it can still take you aback. Gloria Steinem is gone, at 92, which is certainly an age at which it’s appropriate to shuffle off this mortal coil, and yet there’s a loss, not because I expected her to live forever but because she meant so much, and it makes me think back to those other women, those heroes who spoke up, not just to complain about their status but to refuse to remain silent.
This piece in Ms. Magazine, which Steinem co-founded, dragged abortion out of the darkness and put it in front of America, even those who would never read Ms. The piece became a trumpet that was heard well beyond its pages and that opened a long-sealed dialogue that needed to be aired in public.
All gone, but I hope not forgotten, though we’ve seen some reverses in recent years. But even going two steps forward, one step back, results in progress.
Sorensen mocks the reverses, and the glorification of “tradwives” who don’t just choose to stay home with their children but wear at as a badge of resistance, despite the plain fact that feminists have always acknowledged the right for women to make that choice, assuming they can afford it.
It was never, ever that you “can’t” or that you “mustn’t.” What Steinem and her cohorts taught was that women should enjoy the same choices as men. As it happens, I stayed home with the kids, which wouldn’t have been a choice a generation earlier. Feminism isn’t just for the benefit of women; it’s universal.
Rowe offers quite a layout here to mock the dinosaurs, and to show what has been lost and what was never updated to begin with, and labels it all with a pun that emphasizes the narcissistic selfishness at the heart of “mesogyny,” thanks to which Roe v Wade is in the wastebasket and the evidence of sexual assault on young girls remains covered up in defiance of the laws and the courts.
But while some feminists refused to crack a smile in the face of sexism, others played the game with wit and perspective. Ms. Magazine not only put Wonder Woman on their first official (non-preview) cover, but Steinem asked DC to restore Wonder Woman’s somewhat faded powers, though there’s some doubt as to whether her intervention made the change or served as a good PR hook.
Bennett offers an homage both to that early cover and perhaps also to a collection of vintage Wonder Woman comics that Steinem edited.
I gave then-wife a Wonder Woman watch on her birthday, but also a poster of Arthur Rackham‘s illustration of Alice and the pig, in tribute to the number of things she was juggling at the time.
I’m not sure which was closer to the mark for women of that era, but note that Alice ends her adventure in Looking Glass Land by refusing to play along any more.
Espinoza tracked down a good quote to point out that death is not the end of a life well-lived. Steinem never had children, but she has certainly left behind a host of torch-bearers, many of whom likely don’t know where that flame came from.
She is one of the most visible of a cadre of strong women — Betty Friedan, Florynce Kennedy, Germain Greer, Carol Gilligan, Winona LaDuke, and many others — who changed our world.
Here’s a link to several times she appeared on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
But as long as we’re discussing death, here’s a considerably lighter look at the topic:
I don’t know what comes next, but whether you believe in heaven and hell or karma or nothing at all, it’s good to behave well without fretting over rewards and punishment. Virtue is its own reward, and while it’s sometimes the only reward, still, even if it doesn’t make people think well of you, it should at least make you think well of yourself.
Though, like Arlo, I’m still far from done living.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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