Book Review: Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics, and Mystique

Book: Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics, and Mystique by Sydney Ladensohn Stern

Source: Library

Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Review:

This was very informative but perhaps filled with too much information. Some of that information I found could be seen as unimportant and in the end all it did was lengthen the pages of this book. I thought quite a majority of that information could have been left out.

I learned a lot from this biography and it showed that Ms. Steinem wasn't an overnight success she had to work hard. Given the times, after she graduated from college she had a very difficult time trying to find work in journalism once she headed to New York City. She did eventually get assignments but most were not the serious types of articles that she really wanted to write about. According to this book, there are some speculations that her looks and who she dated may have been a door opener for her. However, she prides herself on her hard work instead.

It was some time before she found herself joining the fight for feminism despite being out spoken (which was not the norm for women back then) and supporting various social causes she just had not connected to the cause of feminism. That is until she attended an event held by the Redstockings where the discussion finally clicked for her. She was eager to join in the cause and compiled as much research as possible before entering the fight.

It wasn't long before Gloria caught the attention of others with her ease of speaking (despite her discomfort with speaking on stage) and not to mention her background and education as well as her fabulous sense of style (which wasn't that important to her but to the media it was). She was quickly becoming the new face of feminism which may have angered one particular fighter for the cause, Betty Friedan. Who up until that point was the voice of the cause.

But Gloria made a point of always stating that the fight was a group effort, she rarely took credit for any of the things that she did.

This book focused not only on Gloria's newfound purpose of feminism but also on her life as a child and later dealing with her parents divorce and her mother's mental illness. It also detailed Gloria's reluctance to marry, who eventually did marry in 2000 but since this book was published in 1997, it mainly dealt with her desire to not take that romantic step.

Ultimately, I think I would have rated this book higher if there wasn't so much attention paid to unimportant details.