Giving Grace for Transformation: On Gloria Steinem, Purity Politics, and Feminist Movement
Yesterday I woke up to the news that feminist icon Gloria Steinem had peacefully passed away at the age of 92. Though I never had the occasion to meet or work with her, my heart and chest became heavy with grief. Given the vast amplification of white supremacist imperialist capitalist cisheteropatriarchal power we’re collectively living through, losing another US feminist movement elder cuts deep.
Gloria Steinem came into my life through a piece of political satire that blew my 17-year-old mind: her October 1978 piece for Ms. Magazine, “If Men Could Menstruate.” I think it was taped to a bathroom stall at the Women’s Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where I cut my feminist teeth as a working-class first-generation Puerto Rican undergraduate. Years later, I would take pleasure in teaching that piece to my students—together, like well-trained critical feminist thinkers, we discussed what it might have meant to readers in 1978, what it lacks from a contemporary lens, and how we might rewrite it.
I shared my reaction to her death first as a series of Instagram stories where, in short, I suggested that despite how we felt about her as an individual, we ought to acknowledge the impact of her life-long commitment to feminist liberation. In the final video, I said “She may not have been perfect, because she was human, but she stood up. She used her voice, took chances, was put on pedestals, was given a platform that made it very easy for people to pick at her and tear her down, but she continued doing the work anyway because the commitment to liberation was stronger than the ego.”
Then, on Facebook and Threads:
Rest in Power, Gloria Steinem. I did not have the pleasure of meeting you in person, but your work, your commitment to liberation, your life-long feminist presence shaped me in ways I can’t really describe right now. devastating news
Later in the day, after seeing take after take skewering Steinem particularly for her 4-5 year affiliation with an organization funded by the CIA in the late 50s/early 60s (when she was in her early 20s) coupled with callous critiques of those of who posted in gratitude and grief, I posted:
I don’t need my feminist leaders to be perfect or pure in order to know their value to the larger picture. Especially when we’ve turned them into an icon, put them on a platform, and made them larger than life.
The weird thing is: Gloria Steinem’s particular brand of feminism wasn’t all that attractive to me. I knew of her importance, but I did not study her work or her life. I am not even sure I own any of her books…but I was—and am—feeling defensive. Annoyed even. But mostly—as someone who is now and will forever be in deep grief over the loss of my own best person—I’m feeling into the pain of those for whom her loss was personal. Many of my collaborators and friends knew her, were mentored by her, sat in her house, and were in deep relation with Steinem. I can’t imagine how painful and enraging it must be to see these posts.
And I keep asking myself: Are we all doomed to be ripped to shreds based on one action, one position, one moment in our long lives (if we have the privilege of living to 92!)?
I am now just a few months shy of being 30-years into my own diasporic Puerto Rican queer feminist becoming. I’ve been a sexual assault accompaniment advocate, a domestic violence hotline advocate, and a family court advocate; I’ve coordinated volunteers for an AIDS service and advocacy organization; I’ve worked in shelters for women and children; I’ve participated in campaigns for various reproductive justice causes; I’ve curated feminist art shows; moderated and participated in community discussions; given feminist lectures; written and published feminist books, essays, and articles; I’ve participated in hashtag activism and taken to the streets; I’ve sewn thousands of masks for social justice movement organizations; I’ve taught Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to hundreds of undergraduates in New York; and now I copyedit and index feminist books while serving as President of the National Women’s Studies Association.** And in those 30 years, I have made many mistakes, taken ill-informed positions, reacted my way into snap judgements, complied with structures of power for survival when needed, and exploited evil money to accomplish liberatory ends.
I was not raised by conventionally or outwardly political people. If I was not introduced to Steinem via liberal mainstream white feminism as a young woman, I would not have found the radical anti-imperial feminists of color I would go on to study, align myself with, and join in struggle. It’s important for me to name that. She was not at the center of my feminist world, but she was a force in a grouping of people that laid the groundwork for an imperfect women’s movement that made my path—and the paths of many feminists of my generation—possible.
How many of us had the understanding in our teens and twenties that we do now, decades later? How many of us were born with a radical perspective on empire, gender, race, class, religion, ability, or sexuality? How many of us educated in the US were first taught histories from below? How many of us knew in our youth how to think radically? How to practice abolition? Anti-racism? Anti-sexism? Anti-colonialism? Anti-ableism? How many of us started out by identifying ourselves with the word progressive? Or as radical left? Or even as feminist? Some of us did, surely. But the majority of us? I think not. Many of us moved TO these ideological positions FROM a beginning ideological place that now seems unthinkable. Maybe we have forgotten this? Maybe we are hoping that someone will not unearth that part of our story when we pass. For me, it’s more useful to own up to past failures so I can recognize how far I've come, what it took to get here, and how much further I still have to go. Feminist work is not easy work and we are our own biggest critics.
When I say I reject purity politics and am not interested in seeking perfection from movement leaders, I am hoping to inspire a different way of relating to our elders, our peers, the folks we share space with in liberation movement. I want us to hold each other accountable while giving one another the grace of transformation. I want us to acknowledge all the ways that Steinem’s presence made an impact: not just the positive ways, not just the negative ways. As bell hooks wrote in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center: “There has been no other movement for social justice in our society that has been as self-critical as feminist movement. Feminist willingness to change direction when needed has been a major source of strength and vitality in feminist struggle. That internal critique is essential to any politics of transformation.” Critique is what we do best in service to our mission to make the world a more just and equitable place. But what would it look like for our critiques to be constructive as much as they are destructive? Inspirational as much as they are depressing? Capacious as much as they are narrow? Caring as much as they are cutting? Can we allow her the complexity of a long feminist life?
I want us to acknowledge that we have all been through some kind of transformation—individually and collectively—and will continue to do so as more information is learned, as more critical thinking tools are applied, and as the social, political, temporal, and geographical context we’re working within shifts.
Giving one another the grace of transformation is how we learn from the past, build our ranks, fortify our strength, and construct that better world that feminist liberation promises.
The below images are just some of the posts that offer a perspective of gratitude for Steinem.
**Nothing that I've written and posted here on my personal blog is meant to be a statement from the NWSA.**
If you want to understand a bit more about the context of Steinem’s work with the CIA, this post is helpul: https://alisav.substack.com/p/but-she-was-cia-so-we-hate-her-now
and this thread is helpful: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zacd44idwnzhw736ugwfh7nf/post/3mumz5eplik2h
