GLORIOUS GLORIA STEINEM

She's a big name woman who helped to change the face, the stance, the status, of girls, gals, sweethearts, babes, mistresses, brides, divorcees, ladies -- all women.

(Including me. And when all women are involved, so are all men.)

Steinem's still talking, taking on the masculine world, defining and redefining what a woman is, what a woman can be.

One of the founders of what we came to call "Women's Liberation" -- Gloria Steinem has more than survived moving out of the limelight, into what she is now.

She states what she is with humor, clear speech, the ability to communicate on the level of the best reporters, and shapes her idea of what a woman is by revealing who Gloria Steinem really is -- a caring, nurturing, person who teaches, and reaches out to others.

I admired Gloria Steinem when MZ Magazine arrived in my mailbox every week. I admired G.S. when others said important things that rang the bell in my head and the heads of woman throughout the world. I used the names, wrote about these women in my novel, "Somebody, Woman of the Century."

(...Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emmeline Pankhurst, Victoria Woodhull, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millet, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm. Bella Abzug Germaine Greer, and quite a few others -- too many names to list here.)

Gloria Steinem, in my novel, affected the lives of my main characters in various ways, borrowed from my experience, and the way she affected my life. I didn't need woman's liberation to tell me that I could do and be and take on whatever I wanted, whether it was a male or female thing. I didn't accept the rules, mores, or standards that were my mother's, her mother's, and the hand-me-downs from the last century and centuries before that.

But gee, every female friend I ever had, every woman that I know, every female I've identified with, and every character I have created has worn, dressed in, and covered her naked real self with the hand-me-downs.

Gloria Steinem took on that mountain of vintage things. She's climbed the mountain of what womanhood was supposed to be, and from her work has made the route to the summit, a pathway for all women.

All woman? Listen to what Gloria Steinem says and see for yourself.