Remember way back in September when I was on an amazing phone call with Gloria Steinem? Remember how we could ask her one question? Well, seeing as she is the most amazing woman when it comes to her time, she allowed us a follow-up question. Of course, it seems that as I sent my follow-up, my life went into a tailspin, so this is the first time I have been able to post about the question and her response. But first, I have to give you a personal story about this woman.
When I was in the midst of not knowing what was going on with my heart and all of the symptoms going on and was at wits end, I get a phone call. Of course my luck being the “walking under ladders luck”, I was not home to answer the phone. But I got this incredible message:
“Jenn, this is Gloria Steinem. I heard about what was going on with your health issues and wanted to talk to you further about it. If there is anything at all that I can do for you, please let me know. Here is my home phone number. Please feel free to give me a call back so we can talk.”
Then I fainted.
When I came to I called Jenny to say, “Gloria fucking Steinem called me to see how I was AND she left her HOME phone number. Gloria F. Steinem. Holy mother of all things feminist movement and kick ass-ness, I am freaking out!”
Finally I got up the nerve to call her back and we had a very lovely talk and she gave me amazingly wonderful advice as well as a referral to a doctor who may be able to better help me come up with a diagnosis. Phone call? Check. Advice? Check. Referral? Check. Freaking the hell out? Check. See? When I tell you this woman is amazing…listen to me!
So now, the real reason for this post. When we asked our original questions, we had a chance for a follow up. Here is my follow up as well as her answer. Enjoy!
1) Jenn Satterwhite – Mommy Needs Coffee:
Q: How do you suggest we break the boys club up and let our voices be just as respected and heard? Women are the experts when it comes to the Women’s Movement and Women Online. So, how do we stand up to the Boys Club on the Internet?
A: There are usually at least three ways to increase our power, not necessarily in this order: 1) Naming and claiming what power we have; 2) Demonstrating our power because, like a muscle, it has to be used to exist; and 3) Expanding our power.
Naming and Claiming could mean using the blogosphere to remind everybody that it was a woman (Grace Hopper, later a Rear Admiral)who developed operating programs for the first digital computer in the 1940s and also invented the first computer language in the 1950s; that Sandy Lerner invented the router that made the entire Internet possible (and on which Cisco is based); that women are now a huge percentage of computer users