she's a writer editor but above all a feminist activist Gloria Steinem has
been in the forefront of the women's movement in this country for more than a
half a century now 881 she has penned her memoir my life on the road
newest addition to the NewsHour bookshelf you don't jeffrey Brown
recently at the historic sewell belmont house and museum of the women's suffrage
and equal rights movement here in washington you right here early on about
your father who taught you something through his quote ability to live with
an even love insecurity that's an interesting trait
well it certainly was necessary for a freelance writer like me but I didn't
know that at the time I just thought that's the way life was and he always
said if I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow could be wonderful and
that became your life in a sense not quite because of course you want to be
like the other kids you know so so I will look at the movies and I saw how
kids went to school and fathers had jobs but my parents were you know kind and
loving and wonderful people so I was lucky in that way and I of course didn't
know yet but the idea of living with insecurity would be really helpful in in
later life both as a writer and personal movement you write a book about a life
on the road when you look back now does it look like it was a life that you
chose where did it just happen you know that's a deep question I think both
because what we grow up with feels like home so in that sense it was destined
but I also spent the whole the middle years of my life
assuming that I would have to settle down and live like everybody else and it
was only after I had been living this on the road life for quite a long time
until it was fifty that I realized this isn't just something on the way to
something else this is it
yeah and and that will I i think in a real way because my father had no home I
mean he was a total wonder and my mother had no journey of her own because she
had had to give up the career as a writer and a journalist
you know she kind of give up everything she loved so I took me awhile to realize
that it is an either-or it's an armed about today do you see the same
commitment the same focus on young women so yes more way way way more we do like
12 crazy ladies in the beginning
you know we were definitely
the core of something but not the something and now all of these issues
are majority issues and women are way more likely to just assume that there
are going to be able to use all of their human talents in fact they get
radicalized as they get older because they get into the labor force and they
discover that may be equal pay is not happening so the idea that we're in a
post-feminist to say you know me saying that I can guarantee you that the same
people were saying to me in the beginning you can't do this it's against
guard Royce somebody in the new form of obstructionism into is to say well it's
over you know just to keep you from doing anything more
it's so just begun book tells about many successes along the way I'm wondering
about what you think of as the greatest failures the confidence to tell the
truth about our lives well for instance one in three American women has needed
at some time in her life and abortion and there's still no shame to it you
know
controversy at least so that it's difficult for people to say that when
you look at things like abortion rights outlawing discrimination in the
workplace
a lot of successes along the way but even now on the defensive in some areas
right as these battles unfold in state houses they continue to unfold well here
so I mean essentially
the people who are against reproductive freedom kind of lost what they wanted in
Washington so now they are striving to gain it in state legislatures but
opponents these things and this has been the case for all of your life I'm sure
come to these issues with the same certainty that you do the same sense of
being right as you well know but here's the difference we are protecting their
roads we are protecting with reproductive freedom protects the right
to have children they are not protecting our right to decide when and whether to
let me ask you finally are you able to imagine yourself as a young woman in
today's society you really young women all the time you still talking to you
give to them here's my advice do not listen to me really know I want I want
to support their listening to themselves each of them has things that they love
things that they do that they love so much they forget what time it is
which is a good measure when they're doing it they know their own life and
situations I'm here to support that and say you're you're not okay you're not
more important than somebody else but you're not was important either alright
my life on the road gloria steinem thank you so much thank you