"Don't listen to me, listen to yourselves."

Gloria Steinem is such an incredible woman- what an inspiration. I've always loved her, but T and I just watched a documentary about her -HBO's "Gloria, In Her Own Words"- and wow! T is completely on board with her, and I am more moved than ever. I love that she is strong but also owns her beauty and sexuality; I love that she entered the women's lib movement organically but felt called to participate in and shape it ever-increasingly; she's giving and selfless but simultaneously strong and self-honest; she never suggests that women be anyone but who they are BUT also demands that we demand respect for just those attributes. I intend to write my first Em-i-lis Essay in tribute to GS but need to get my thoughts in order first. Suffice it to say that I feel that for so many of us women, her path is ours, her struggles towards self-actualization our own, her weaknesses and strengths ones we all share, her regrets those we might have made or make. And those things are what make us real, what make us sentient beings, women of depth, with much to offer and the confidence to realize that always we also can learn and receive much. Compromise, reflection and change are, in their most sincere forms, not flaws but opportunities, not flip-floppiness but honesty. And to demand equal acknowledgement and treatment of those characteristics is just.