I was so incredibly moved by Gloria: A Life, that it has taken me a few weeks to digest the play and write this blog. I am grateful for the large circle of women in my life and loved sharing the Gloria experience with my long-standing Book Group.
Gloria: A Life tells the story of Gloria Steinem raising her voice for equality and freedom for women. Her journey embraces our diversity, which has empowered and impacted so many generations to come. Front and center to her story, is the relationship with her mother, displaying the powerful and emotional ties and themes that end up defining us.
In my book, Whats Mom Got to Do With it? Breathe New Life Into Your Career By Understanding Your Mother-Daughter Relationship, I write about the conscious and subconscious aspects of this relationship giving women a chance to stand up in their own truth, let go of old messages that still define them, even in the workplace. The promise of being freed from limiting messages is a promise to better outcomes for all.
In her early days, Gloria was judged as a radical woman’s liberation pioneer. She worked to lead a life that had no resemblance to her mother’s life whatsoever. She studied journalism and fought to report on non-traditional topics for women in the 1960s, as well as other extreme ideas for that time. As Gloria struggles to define her place in the professional world and ends up not becoming a mother herself, she realizes at some point that she is, in fact, more like her mother than she thought; a common theme I find in my work with women. She realizes she is actually “living the life that her mother didn’t have a chance to.”
Many of our mothers simply did not have the opportunities we had; and we needed the Gloria’s of the world to pave the way for the next generation. This is where we can start to find forgiveness for our mothers not being the ideal role models we needed – they simply did not have the same choices being born into that time.
But as Gloria did, if you ask the deeper questions, find out the secrets, look closely at the dynamic with their husbands and partners, you will see your mother’s strengths and learn that so many of your opportunities, passions, drive and spirit, might just be a direct impact of lessons learned from her life.
Thank you to Gloria and all of her fellow women’s libbers who paved the way for us and all of our daughters to create their lives however they desire.
I am so grateful for the women’s movement that took place when I was a young girl. Women fought the fight so we could have unlimited possibilities. We still have work to do.
You have two more weeks to catch this show before it closes. You will hear women’s stories, old and new that will touch your heart and undoubtedly resonate with pieces of your own mother daughter stories.
