Synopsis
The author investigates the most vital component of a healthy personality--self-esteem--drawing on her own experience of low self-esteem and that of such luminaries as Mahatma Gandhi
Reviews
In the wake of such feminist calls-to-arms as Susan Faludi's Backlash (p. 1133), Paula Kamen's Feminist Fatale (p. 1137), and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth (p. 389), Steinem's inwardly turned examination of how men and women sabotage themselves by suppressing the ``child within'' appears decidedly retro. Nevertheless, her reflections on her own and others' spiritual struggles may give a new generation of activists pause for further reflection. In the wake of Ms. magazine's sale and her own resignation as its editor, Steinem found herself, she says, with the time and inspiration to write a book she'd had in mind for years--a study of the psychological and societal factors that negatively influence self-esteem. The result, she tells us, was a heavily footnoted, scholarly report whose reliance on experts' opinions revealed Steinem's own deep lack of confidence, and inspired her to toss away her original manuscript and come out of the closet herself. Recounting her own early life as the daughter of a factory worker who divorced his mentally ill wife when Gloria was only ten, Steinem details the natural progression from a co-dependent relationship with her mother to an unconscious adult sense of being ``co-dependent with the world.'' Forced by her need to wall off her past, she led a life of outer-world confrontations until, through therapy undertaken as research for her book, she began to master her ``inner child.'' By including others' tales of self- actualization through a ``revolution from within''--the creation of a winning chess team in Spanish Harlem, the transformation of a housewife into an entrepreneur, etc.--Steinem illustrates how others' psychic journeys may lead in much different directions than her own. Still, much of what is recommended here will strike many as old hat--and, in the end, more interesting as an update on the feminist's life than as a practical aid to others. A piquant counterpoint to recently revitalized, outer-directed feminist fashion. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
One of the founding mothers of contemporary feminism has written a self-help book that utterly transcends the genre. In lucid prose that is by turns brave and funny and tender, Steinem takes us on a journey of circles and spirals because, as she says, "If we think of ourselves as circles, our goal is completion . . . if we think of work structures as circles . . . progress means mutual support and connectedness." Drawing from sources that range from Margaret Mead to Chief Seattle (Sealth), from Alice Walker to the Upanishads, as well as from her own life and the lives of her friends and colleagues, she provides a series of pathways to self-esteem. Steinem's book unfolds like a flower: it offers literature, art, nature, meditation, and connectedness as ways of finding and exploring the self. Her message is that it is our very selves that we need to trust, despite educational and societal pressures that may denigrate the female experience. Her focus is women, but she is clear that what she has to say is for men, too, and she is neither strident nor dismissive. Recommended for all collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/91.
- GraceAnne A. DeCandido, "School Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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