Gloria Steinem Lit a Revolution. The Torch Is Ours Now.

The useful part

This week, Gloria Steinem died at the age of 92, peacefully at her home in New York City and surrounded by people who loved her. For a period of time, Gloria did not attend school because she was tending to her mother. She later said that she chose not to have children because she had already had a mother to take care of.

How it works

• Pronatalism in the United States still insists that all women should want children, care for those children, stay home and find satisfaction within the narrow boundaries others have drawn for them.
• Even education has historically been framed not as a path toward women's intellectual or economic freedom, but as a place to find a husband.
• To want something more—and to care about something larger than the life prescribed for you—has always carried challenging consequences for women.
• She also understood that the freedom to shape one's life begins with the ability to govern one's own body.
• In 2017, standing before the Women's March in Washington, D.C., Gloria called for "a deep democracy" in which people would refuse to be quiet or controlled.

What to take from it

Equality has never arrived because people in power suddenly found it convenient. Both are built by people who recognize one another, tell the truth about their lives and refuse to accept that injustice is inevitable.

Details worth keeping

There were parts of Gloria's childhood that mirrored my own. No more asking Daddy." Those words carry a special weight today.