Sunday, December 4, 2022

Book 33: My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

Full disclosure: I was about halfway through this book but put it aside when I got sucked into The Cabinet of Curiosities. That's not a knock on this book, which I enjoyed.

Steinem started her life on the road, courtesy of her father. The family spent most of the year traveling around the country, buying and selling antiques, farm tools, and other household items. Living in India for two years after college taught Steinem the pleasures of communal travel. The key to her growth as a writer, activist, feminist, and person was to talk with other people and especially listen. 

I liked Steinem's discussion of political campaigns, especially the 2008 Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. She was moving in her stories relating to Native American culture and history. I loved reading about the Spider Woman of the Southwest--who names things and brings them into being. Steinem believes spiders should be the totem of writers. "Both go into a space alone and spin out of their own bodies a reality that has never existed before." I can now say I want to be a spider woman.

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