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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Culture & Society

Gloria Steinem’s Daring

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • The article pays tribute to Gloria Steinem, the American journalist and writer identified as a symbol of the women’s rights movement.
  • Through a conversation between a grandson and his grandmother Pam, it recalls how Steinem and Ms. magazine influenced young women in the 1970s.
  • Pam describes Ms. as a declaration of independence that opened space for social issues beyond conventional advice about beauty and romance.

“Gloria Steinem? Are you asking me who Gloria Steinem was?” Pam looks at me with wide eyes, amused, incredulous and almost scandalized. The news reaches us in her kitchen, where I am visiting my young and beautiful grandmother.

“You people today have no idea how difficult it would be to imagine a world without Gloria Steinem,” she tells me. “Gloria Steinem changed my life, and not only mine. She changed countless lives. Even yours, although you may not know it.”

Gloria Steinem changed my life, and not only mine. She changed countless lives. Even yours, although you may not know it.

· PamShe explains Gloria Steinem’s influence while speaking with her grandson.

Pam remembers being a shy 15-year-old in 1970. Sometimes, she says, she wished she had been born a boy. But being a girl led her to discoveries that shaped her. For rebellious and nonconformist girls of her generation, magazines such as Ms., which Steinem founded with Dorothy Pitman, Letty Cottin, Nina Finkelstein and other women, became part of that awakening.

Just seeing the name on the cover made Pam smile: Ms. To her, it was a declaration of independence, an attitude. In 1972, at 16, she first read the magazine’s supplement in New York Magazine. She was used to publications such as Seventeen, with advice on seductive lips, landing a dream date, wasp-like waists and false eyelashes. Ms. spoke instead about issues of social interest, not only lingerie, makeup and ways to catch men. The unfinished article presents that contrast through Pam’s memories and her gratitude for having come of age in a difficult but liberating era.

Sometimes I wished I had been born a boy! But thanks to that I discovered so many things. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.

· PamShe recalls her adolescence and the experiences that shaped her.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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