From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

My Life on the Road

Gloria Steinem

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What Members Thought

Dec 10, 2015 Emily Williams rated it really liked it

I actually listened to this from audible when walking to and from work. Not sure how it would read, but I found it really inspiring as an audiobook. Gloria Steinem wrote beautifully on travel, feminism, organizing, race, and friendship. Some of my favorite moments were small descriptions of chance encounters with cab drivers or attendees of an event. Personal and moving, you can tell she can connect deeply with people. Don't know how it reads as a book, but I'm glad I "read" it. ...more

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Apr 17, 2016 Chessa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-riot-rec, feminist, memoir, audiobook

This audiobook was great. It starts out really focused on how and why Steinam has been a lifelong traveler (and the stuff about her dad is gold). From there it shifts gears and uses travel as the mechanism for other parts of her life-traveling to college campuses, traveling on the campaign trail, etc. I had some real heart-glowy, teary-eyed moments about feminism and how far we've come over the course of her career. #readwomen ...more

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Feb 26, 2018 Rebecca rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-read-harder, 2018-mmd

Read Harder 2018: Celebrity Memoir
Modern Mrs. Darcy Challenge 2018: Memoir

I bought this book last summer on clearance, and I was so happy to have these challenges to nudge me to finally read it. I knew almost nothing about Gloria Steinem, and wow, now I want to know more. I did not realize that Steinem (who was born in the 1930s) is actually about 10 years older than my parents, and thus she has been organizing and campaigning for women’s rights for basically 50 years. That alone is an astoundin Read Harder 2018: Celebrity Memoir
Modern Mrs. Darcy Challenge 2018: Memoir

I bought this book last summer on clearance, and I was so happy to have these challenges to nudge me to finally read it. I knew almost nothing about Gloria Steinem, and wow, now I want to know more. I did not realize that Steinem (who was born in the 1930s) is actually about 10 years older than my parents, and thus she has been organizing and campaigning for women’s rights for basically 50 years. That alone is an astounding fact if you just consider the changes she has seen since she was in her 20s in the late 1950s.

This memoir isn’t specifically about her feminist activism, but about what she learned from constantly traveling for so many of those years. I loved Steinem’s assertion that she is glad she never owned a car because she always learned so much from communal travel. There is a whole section on her interactions with cab drivers that is fascinating. There are also chapters on her experiences traveling and listening to people on college campuses and in political campaigns.

I think what struck me the most from the book was the last chapter where Steinem wrote about what she learned from Wilma Mankiller, who was the first elected female chief of the Cherokee Nation in modern times. Steinem writes about how her experiences with Wilma Mankiller and other native women led her to slowly understand that “this balance between females and males had existed in the past, and for a few, it still did. There were people to learn from.”

I first encountered Wilma Mankiller in the children’s book Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World I bought for my son, and I recently read Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto with my church book group Conversations on Race. I’m so saddened that I know so little about the people who cherished this land I love long before my ancestors arrived, and I’m committed to learn more, about the history and current issues of native people AND the history of the feminist movement.

Overall, I highly recommend this book; there is so much here that we have missed learning about in school, in college, and in popular culture. Now more than ever, we need to see how far we have come, and recognize that all of us can contribute to further equality for all people.
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