A Feminist Humanist’s Last Word

Gloria Steinem’s tenth book and third memoir, An Unexpected Life, will be her last. The prolific author, essayist, and activist/organizer who personified feminism died on September 2 at 92, three weeks before publication. Having given public preview readings of this new book to large audiences just weeks earlier, Gloria’s death came as a surprise. It sparked a tsunami of articles, posts, videos, and photo remembrances mourning her loss and celebrating her long, influential life.  

We had just finished flying our flags at half-mast for Dolly Parton when Gloria, another larger-than-life, much-loved, sexy, glamorous, and (childless) celebrity-mother figure, also moved into our collective past. Poet and women’s rights activist Robin Morgan also perished three days after Gloria, adding to the grief. 

As this moment arrives, it is not at all sentimental to simply glory in this now poignant treasure trove of Gloria’s last words. In Steinem’s absence, we can take solace in this jewel of a book whose pages spill over with her generosity, big-hearted wisdom, and true-north moral compass. Given today’s misogynist political climate and backlash against feminism, An Unexpected Life couldn’t come at a better time. 

Gloria’s dedication of the book to her late friend Wilma Mankiller, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, is haunting: “Nothing can make up for her loss, but I hope her spirit might be carried in these pages.” Now this book will carry on the spirits of both Gloria and Wilma. 

Reading An Unexpected Life continues the conversation Steinem has had with her readers and listeners for over 60 years. Part essay collection, part autobiographical reflection, part how-to-live-your-life advice, the book is a collage of memories that reads like an intimate conversation. It is also a scrapbook, containing images like Gloria’s 1955 high school American Red Cross lifesaving certificate, and the cover of her 1964 playbill for Blues for Mister Charlie. 

Given her advanced age, Steinem makes it clear that An Unexpected Life is her last hurrah. She writes near the end of the book: “I’m not sure there is an afterlife, at least one that is longer than the memories of those who love us. I didn’t grow up with a religious idea of heaven or hell. It seems motivating enough to be fully alive in the present, and to leave positive memories behind.”  

An Unexpected Life is chock-a-block with positive memories. Steinem interviewed James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, and Andy Warhol in the early 1960s for New York magazine. In 1963, she famously went undercover as a Playboy Bunny and wrote an expose for Show. She hired Annie Leibovitz to photograph many covers of Ms. magazine, which she co-founded in 1972. She met the writer bell hooks, artist Niki de Saint Phalle, Olympian Rafer Johnson, feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir, and civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. She traveled to South Carolina for the ACLU to interview women who had been sterilized against their will. She met with Cherokee activists in South Dakota’s Badlands, participated in a sweat lodge ceremony in Oklahoma, and spent years learning about Native American culture, including the histories of Indigenous societies more democratically organized and governed than their modern, monotheistic successors. She traveled all over the country and the world, from West Virginia to Zambia, speaking to groups of women at colleges and town halls. She befriended and championed Black feminists like Margaret Sloan, Alice Walker, Florence “Flo” Kennedy, and Dorothy Pittman Hughs. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, campaigned for Barbara Mikulski’s winning U.S. Senate bid from Maryland in 1986, and for Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign in 1968. She marched down Fifth Avenue in August 1970 with Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, and Kate Millett in the largest and most diverse feminist protest ever—the Women’s March for Equality.  

Steinem also mixes in unforgettable new biographical anecdotes. One takes place when she was a child, alone with her mentally ill mother in Toledo, Ohio. Steinem describes how they shared the same bed on top of rotting floors in a condemned farmhouse. One night while sleeping, a rat bit Gloria’s hand. In the middle of the night, desperate and with no car, she and her mother hitchhiked to and from the hospital emergency room for a tetanus shot: “Now I wish that both of those drivers could know what a difference their kindness made in our lives.” 

Another surprising personal anecdote also involved a bite. While sharing a couch at a mutual friend’s office, the author Terry Southern “reached over, took hold of my wrists so I couldn’t move, and tried to kiss me. Without a moment’s thought, I bit him on the cheek.” Steinem explained her reaction: “If you haven’t been trained to submit, you are like a cat; you just respond.” These anecdotes remind us that as much as Gloria is remembered as a peacemaker and bridge builder, she is also a tough survivor.  

Steinem explores the big themes of communal humanity, gender equality, race, class, and the power of story, yet avoids being didactic. She aims to show options, not tell readers what they should do: “I would be happy if any words here contribute to each reader finding a unique life that also has universal value.”  

In the last chapter, Steinem imparts bits of wisdom that might not land with such force if they didn’t come from this history-making editor and activist. They include: 

“If we don’t learn from history, we are condemned not only to repeat it but also to be punished by it.”  

“Progress is and always has been a circle…”  

“Being present communally allows us to love and be loved, to understand and be understood, to know that we are part of the human community.”

“Listening is just as creative and necessary as talking.”  

“I am in love with the present. It’s the only time we are fully alive.”  

It is impossible to read the last line of An Unexpected Life with a dry eye: “We are travelers on a mysterious path, and only one thing is clear: We need one another.”  

We needed Gloria Steinem, and for more than 60 years, she gave back in spades. How much more could we ask from her? Gloria showed us that being a feminist means being a humanist. It is time to find our own mysterious path, but thankfully, An Unexpected Life can serve as a handy guidebook.