THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250046
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY SUSAN M. FINCKE
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
DESPITE BEING in the forefront of the feminist movement for the past three decades, Gloria Steinem has never been the subject of a biography - until now.
Steinem, whose views and actions have defined much of the movement since the early 1960s, has written extensively about herself, but academician Carolyn Heilbrun has produced the first outside look: ``The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem'' (Dial Press, 451 pp., $24.95).
Steinem gave Heilbrun access to all of her files, but had no editorial approval of the text. The book's most outstanding feature is Heilbrun's ability to place Steinem in social and political context. Her assessment of the feminist movement - past, present and future - is particularly concise and insightful.
Until 1993, Heilbrun taught modern British literature, the novel and feminism at Columbia University. She claims not to have met Steinem before undertaking this project, which is surprising considering the titles of two of her earlier books: ``Toward a Recognition of Androgyny'' and ``Reinventing Womanhood.'' She is also author of the Amanda Cross mysteries.
Heilbrun's writing is conversational, although sometimes long-winded. She invites reflection.
In a chapter titled ``Awakening,'' she poses: ``How did Gloria Steinem evolve from a political columnist for New York magazine to the most famous feminist in the country, if not the world; and how was she so suddenly, as she thought, transformed into a feminist, and one who would never desert that cause?''
And posits: ``There are two strands to this question. One, biographical: What, at this late point, finally brought her to feminism? One, historical: What was feminism when she became, as it seemed, its instant media embodiment, and why did this happen?''
Then aptly answers these questions.
Steinem's childhood provides Heilbrun with fertile ground. After her parents' divorce, Steinem moved to Ohio with her mother, a devotee of Theosophy and a follower of Krishnamurti. Her only sibling, older sister Susanne, moved to Washington, leaving 11-year-old Gloria and her mother alone in a one-room basement apartment in Toledo.
Poverty haunted them. Her mother's deteriorated mental state, which Steinem would write about only after her death in ``Ruth's Song,'' was Steinem's daily reality. But Heilbrun shows little tolerance for sentimentality: ``What Steinem did not reveal about her mother in `Ruth's Song,' nor perhaps until recently face up to, is that her mother was, to put it bluntly, crazy.''
In 1951, Steinem's sister implored their father to take their mother for one year so Gloria could come to Washington to finish high school. He agreed, and Gloria escaped the poverty and mental illness of the previous seven years.
According to Heilbrun, Steinem's years of being mother to her mother produced in her a ``rescue fantasy'' that would play itself out again and again. It surfaced in the causes she chose to champion, some of her personal relationships and in her on-going struggle to save Ms. magazine, which she helped to found, from financial ruin.
Heilbrun observes: ``Gloria Steinem's family - however distant from the ideal of the nuclear family incessantly promulgated by movies, advertisers and the politically conservative - seems to have served her well.''
Comparing Steinem to fellow Smith College graduate and poet Sylvia Plath, sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and legendary pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, Heilbrun portrays Steinem as a paradox. For many, Steinem's book on self-esteem, ``Revolution From Within,'' brought the contradictions full-circle. Heilbrun discusses the book at some length, gracefully answering critics, but in the end commenting: ``Steinem's failure to see how many of her ideas would . . . appear familiar - or even tired - was surely naive.''
Elsewhere, Heilbrun characterizes Steinem, professing to be ``ill-prepared'' for being referred to as the ``pretty feminist'' (if a woman can get a man, why would she need equal pay?), as truthful, but disingenuous.
She is kinder, however, in concluding that Steinem has shown a ``completeness, a steadfastness of purpose, a willingness to undertake risks and to work for chosen goals, and a firmness in maintaining her principles that can be discerned throughout her life.'' MEMO: Susan M. Fincke is a former president of the Tidewater chapter of the
National Organization for Women. She lives in Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: Photo illustration
Gloria Steinem has never been the subject of a biography - until
now.
by CNB