My Revolution From Within

I read famous women's activist, Gloria Steinem's book, Revolution From Within, as the supplement to my final paper. To say the least it was the perfect ending to my journey though this course. This book in many ways is a self-help guide to finding your inner-self -- a task that is not easy to do. I am sure that you have thought about who you are and what you stand for, but that as Gloria explains is just the beginning of self discovery.

I’m not talking about just our roles or social identities. We all identify ourselves as a friend, brother/sister, employee, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, partner, father/mother, son/daughter, all at the same time, but these are just an aspect of who we really are (these are often roles we play because we have been socialized to do so, but maybe they are not the true us). In essences, what I learned as I raced through the pages of her book, is that these identities don’t represent who we fundamentally are inside. Our inner-self is who we really are on the inside.

To know your inner self is to know your purpose, your values, your visions, your motivations, your goals and your beliefs without having society tell you what all of those things should be. Not as what you have been told by others, but what you have discovered for yourself. Knowing your inner self requires a high level of introspection and self-awareness, which Gloria humbly displays in this book -- this is her journey and a pathway for others to use as a guide on their own journey.

This knowing of self has a deep connection with feminism. It actually is one of the most fundamental parts of the feminist movement, which often is not discussed. Women must understand their strenghts/weakness in conjunction with understanding how society views these same characteristics , behaviors, etc... These may not directly conform with what YOU represent. What I think was the most profound thing I walked away with from this book is that I am the owner of my own life and I need to live my life for myself. A life that is defined by me, not what is defined by our society. This is going to take A LOT of work, but I am excited to make the journey just as Gloria Steinem unveiled in her book, Revolution From Within.