Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995. Second Edition [stated]. Later printing. Trade Paperback. Good. xxii, [2], 406, [2] pages. Occasional footnotes. Index. Some page discoloration. Minor tear to top edge of page vii/viii. Corner of page 3/4 creased. With a new preface and notes by the author. Inscribed to Dionna Humphry by the author twice: To Dionna Humphry--who is our future! Gloria Steinem, 2001 (on a bookplate inside the front cover), and To Dionna Humphry--a pioneer of reproductive freedom. In Sisterhood, Gloria Steinem, 2000 (on a bookplate on the front free endpaper). This is believed to be the Dionna Humphrey whose work in social justice began at the age of 17, and she's worked for social change for well over a decade. She was named one of Choice USA's 30 under 30 emerging leaders in 2003. And in 2007 Dionna was nominated by the Women's Information Network for a Young Women of Achievement Award. She is now Campaign Director at MomsRising. Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist journalist and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine, and a co-founder of Ms. magazine. In 1969, Steinem published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation", which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader. In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that "works to make women visible and powerful in the media". Steinem remains an organizer and lecturer, and was a media spokeswoman on issues of equality. Steinem's most diverse and timeless collection of essays are found here, from the humorous expose "I Was a Playboy Bunny" to the moving tribute to her mother, "Ruth's Song". Derived from a Kirkus review: The world didn't lose a great journalist when Gloria Steinem focused her energies on feminist activism-but because she was a working journalist, the light bulb goes on right here. This first collection of her writings leads off with autobiographical comments: on the speaking she's done instead of writing, and how difficult and ultimately rewarding it was; on her earlier writing career, or the frustrations of frivolous, "girl reporter" assignments; on her first stabs at "telling the truth in public" and other outcomes of a "growing consciousness." From the pre-feminist writing, she includes only "I Was a Playboy Bunny"-a 1963 "expose" of the crippling grind, the miserable pay, the sexual harassment-and the first parts of a section of campaign reports, 1965-72. It's there, in 1968, that the "Feminist Realization" hits home-eliciting the kind of protest that would quickly become a groundswell: "Six months ago I would have been honored by McGovern's invitation to a 'serious' political meeting, but full of doubt about whether I could contribute in a 'serious' (male) way. . . . I couldn't admit that any power relationship in life is political: therefore politics for women may be who's doing the dishes, or who's getting paid half the wages that a man would get for the same job, or who's expected to take the roles of service and support everywhere, including in political campaigns." A dozen pages later, after the 1972 Democratic Convention: "Women are never again going to be mindless coffee-makers, or mindless policy-makers. . . ." That sense of being in at the creation [is the focus] of the pieces in the remaining two-thirds of the book-pieces that are essentially feminist polemics whether the subject is food, Jackie Kennedy or the heroine of Sophie's Choice. A partial exception is "Ruth's Song (Because She Could Not Sing It)," Steinem's previously unpublished memoir of her mentally-disturbed mother-whom she regards as a victim but also celebrates as a life-force. Still, her particular talent has been for perceiving the feminist angle, in her own writing and for Ms., and spreading that recognition.