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Gloria Steinem at a Women’s Action
Alliance news conference on Jan. 12, 1972.
(Photo by Warren K. Leffler/U.S. News & World Report collection at
the Library of Congress)
Gloria Steinem, 1972, Emerson College, Boston
She was who we girls wanted to be
All of us scrappy hippies in flannel
Standing shoulder to shoulder in the gym
I can still smell the thick fragrance of excitement
Watching her up there, her gorgeous hair
Aviator glasses we all wanted to wear, her long
Fingers pointing as she and Bill Baird (who cares)
Held up posters of different types of birth control:
Diaphragm, IUD, words I’d never heard
Me, having swallowed “The Pill” since puberty
I was one of the lucky ones unlike Melissa or Lori
Had to scrape up the money and fly to Puerto Rico
I can still remember the joyful heat of emotion, Gloria
Mod Squad tall, giving us Voice, permission to be heard
Holding our hands with words I’ve cherished forever
Our fragile 19-year-old selves changed in an instant
She was the first and only to ever tell us we were not
Pieces of shit in a bloated male world, or words to that
Effect, we could make a difference, we could speak up
We could be feminists, the new word, the word
I wore like over-sized golden hoop earrings
That long weekend visit home, as I swaggered
Into my mother’s kitchen, Gloria’s voice in my head
Saying The Word at dinner while my mother
Looked away, scared to hear, but wanted
With all her heart to join this new world
Her daughter brought home to her. |
