"The Truth Will Set You Free...But First it Will Piss You Off!" - Gloria Steinem

I had the great fortune of going to hear Gloria Steinem speak at Wellesley College last week. It was a full house in a rather intimate setting. She spent a good deal of time discussing the roots of matriarchal society in early Native American cultures, and how the patriarchal European settlers were particulary unimpressed and in fact threatened by peoples who placed such emphasis on their womenfolk. Perhaps another reason for the eradication of the native people? What struck me though, was her response to my own question regarding the state of feminism in America. I had asked how we as mothers, as educators, as advocates, could more effectively involve young women in a movement to which many younger women believe to be archaic and unnecessary. "How do we insure that we will be able to pass the torch to our daughters and granddaughters," I asked. Ms. Steinem thought for a moment and then responded, "I think that it's important for us to listen. Let the young tell us what they are experiencing, what they are feeling..." This is how we insure the legacy of feminism...to merely listen. It seems so simple, doesn't it? And yet, two days later, I found myself in a very different situation in which listening was far from anyone's mind. I attended a lecture hosted by the CWPPP, in which political analyst and Globe journalist Joan Venocchi spoke. The room was equally intimate, but the age gap was considerable. What emerged was a shouting match between young and old...the old reprimanding the young for feeling disconnected from the issues of gender and race. "We have worked hard so that you can have what you have," said one woman, "how can you say that gender doesn't matter in politics?" This has been a question I have often asked of my own students. And then I remembered something that Ms. Steinem had said, that "perhaps as mothers, we've done our jobs too well." Maybe we've allowed the disconnect to happen, the indifference to grow, the gender consciousness to recede. In the hopes that our daughters would be left a better future than we had, maybe we have inadvertently led them to believe that there will be far less obstacles to overcome. I know that I have told my girls countless times that they can be 'anything they wish to be.' And yet, that may not be true. Understanding our responsibility to our youth must be a top priority if we hope to 'pass the torch.' Let us not point the finger, but embrace our future mothers, advocates and leaders. Let us not speak, but listen. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.