Steinem's death a call to action

Many of us woke up Thursday to learn that Gloria Steinem had died at age 92. I wept in sadness and in appreciation of all she accomplished to open doors for me, my daughters and the women of my generation. As the first executive director of the Wisconsin Women's Council, I have been proud of the work we did here in Wisconsin. We expanded funding for women's anti-violence programs. We funded women who, due to divorce or death, find themselves suddenly in need of paid work (we called them displaced homemakers). We advocated for comprehensive women's healthcare. We pushed for equal and comparable pay for work that women do, for education initiatives to help girls prepare for their future ever-changing lives, for marital property reform — the list goes on and on. We were able to focus on the needs of poor women and tried to ensure that the various welfare reform proposals reflected women's real lives. We tried to teach the Legislature that women and men work for the same reason: They need money. But for women, it also meant needing childcare and other support services. We championed family and medical leave. We promoted hiring diverse work forces to ensure that the needs of the diverse population were being heard and met. All of these things and more could not have happened unless Gloria Steinem had started and pushed the work. I attended the National Women's Political Caucus convention, which Gloria had founded, and listened to Gloria and other stellar speakers give us strategies and lessons on how to make this huge cultural change happen. I owe her so much, and I mourn not only that she is gone, but that so many young people don't know who she was. I have watched as so many of the gains we celebrated evaporate due to the bigotry and stupidity of so many of our leaders. I not only mourn this for my granddaughters, and grandson, but I take very personally the efforts of so many in government to cut funding, to attack efforts to diversify the workplace, including the military, to repeal women's comprehensive healthcare, to make fun of efforts to ask poignant questions, to dismiss misogynistic emails as "boys will be boys" and to name efforts to advance women as "woke" or "shit." Gloria taught me how to fight, and the importance of the fight. And as sad as I am to see this occurring, I can't help but wonder how profoundly this all must have affected Gloria, the mother of the second wave of the women's movement. I will take her death as a call to action and will be sure my grandchildren continue the fight, as their parents have. And I encourage everyone reading this to be sure your family, intimate and extended, know who Gloria was and how hard the fight was. Because we have to keep fighting. As Gloria said, it is not passing the torch; it is using our torch to light others. May her memory and legacy always be a blessing. Longtime Wisconsin feminist leader Hannah Rosenthal was the head of the State Department's Office to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism under President Barack Obama and Midwest regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.