Let's write about the late and great feminist Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem: Gloria Steinem, the American feminist and journalist whose activism helped push through greater rights for women around the world has died, aged 92. Ms. Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her. Born in Ohio in 1934, Steinem grew up in a trailer home. Her mother’s mental illness left her struggling to hold on to work and in and out of sanatoriums. When she was 10, her parents separated and, while growing up in a rundown home in Toledo with her mother, Steinem began to notice the hostility her mother endured as a working woman.  After graduating from a women’s liberal arts college in 1956, Steinem travelled to India for two years, where she worked as a legal clerk in the country’s supreme court. Returning to the US, she worked as the director of the Independent Research Service, a CIA front that recruited American students to disrupt the Soviet-controlled World Youth Festivals in Vienna and Helsinki. Steinem later revealed she had always known who was bankrolling the operation: “If I had a choice I would do it again.” (The Guardian)

Eulogy by Dora Anne Mills, MD, MPH, FAAP:  The View from Maine September 4, 2026
Not Ideology — Epidemiology:  Published on Facebook

Women's standing and women's survival rise and fall together.

Gloria Steinem died this week at 92, and I have been thinking about how to explain to my children's generation what the world looked like when I was a girl growing up in rural Maine, and how much of the distance between that world and theirs runs through her life's work.

When I was born, a woman in Maine (or the U.S.) could not reliably get a credit card or a loan without a husband's or father's signature. She could be fired for becoming pregnant, and often was. If her husband beat her, there was no shelter to go to, no protection order to seek, and little language even to name what was happening. The term "domestic violence" had not yet entered public life. Contraception was not yet a settled legal right. Medical school classes were more than ninety percent men, and the few women admitted were routinely asked why they were taking a seat from a man. None of this was ancient history. All of it was within my lifetime.
Steinem did not change these things single-handedly. No one does. But she was, for half a century, the movement's most tireless organizer and its clearest voice. 

Ms. Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine and the National Women's Political Caucus, testified for the Equal Rights Amendment, and insisted that the things happening privately to women - in their marriages, their doctors' offices, their workplaces - were public questions deserving public answers. That insistence is, at its core, a public health idea. It is the same idea that built our field: that patterns of suffering are not fate, and that naming them is the first step to changing them.

The public health consequences have been profound. The CDC counts family planning among the ten great public health achievements of the twentieth century, because when women can decide whether and when to have children, mothers and babies live. Domestic violence moved from a private shame to a recognized cause of injury and death that our hospitals now screen for and many communities now shelter against. And the professions changed: women today make up more than half of American medical students. My own career - medical school, country doctoring, fifteen years as Maine's state health officer - was built on doors that were pried open in the 1960s and 70s, most of them by women I never met. So was my sister's: Maine, which had never elected a woman governor in its first two centuries, has now done so. And so, I hope, will my daughter's, as she trains for medicine in rural Maine.
If you want to know what the world looks like without those changes, you do not have to imagine it. You can read the data. Around the world, a woman still dies about every two minutes from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, deaths that are overwhelmingly preventable, and overwhelmingly concentrated in places where girls leave school early, marry as children, and cannot decide the timing of their own pregnancies. In the countries where women's rights are weakest, a woman's lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is more than a hundred times higher than in countries where those rights are strong. The correlation is not a coincidence. Women's standing and women's survival rise and fall together. That is not ideology; it is epidemiology.

The lesson of her century is that these gains were made, not given, and they are kept the same way. Gloria Steinem liked to say that she planned to live to 100, and she nearly did. The best way I know to honor the years she gave us is to spend our own the same way: paying attention, telling the truth about what the data show, and refusing to accept that any mother's death is simply the way things are.

Let's write about pandemics: Post COVID on Earth

Dora Anne Mills, MD, MPH
"Not-So-Brief COVID-19 Update"

#vaccinate

Dr. Mills has been publishing the "No-So-Brief" throughout the pandemic, reporting news with her opinions and medical scientific information.

Sunday, July 4, 2021
A Day to Celebrate

Dr. Dora Anne Mills:  Chief Health Improvement Officer for Maine Health

Although this weekend is a time for celebration, there are times when grief and sadness are overwhelming. Recently, running into so many friends and family whom I’ve not seen for months, I realize this yo-yoing of emotions is common. Everyone seems excited to be emerging from the pandemic cave. But everyone is also carrying the burden of loss - loss of loved ones, loss of a job, loss of a former life.
I’m also amazed at how many are making major life changes. People are leaving their office careers. They are choosing instead to farm, to quilt, to fish. Many who are maintaining their jobs are also taking up previously unheard-of hobbies, often related to nature or making things by hand, such as beekeeping, gardening, bird watching, knitting, or cooking. People are deciding not to have children or to have children. Gap years are now routine. It seems as though collectively we’re experiencing an existential crisis, and we are seeking more meaning.

The reasons for such a crisis are obvious. The pandemic uprooted everyone’s lives. Climate change’s worsening is palpable, and now without question directly impacting our daily lives. Political strife is dividing families and friends. Racism’s wounds are gaping.
Despite the yo-yo of emotions and despite the existential crisis, I’m optimistic. History is on our side. As I shared some details in a post on June 8, 2020, accelerated changes for the good emerge from pandemics’ tragedies. The Black Plague that started in the mid-1300s, led to the death of an estimated 60% of Europe’s population. But it also led to the dismantling of the feudal system and ideas, replacing it with the Renaissance. Disproportionately wiping out serfs, who worked in close quarters producing food for the merchants, priests, and kings, the plague exerted unfathomable losses. But the resulting labor shortage meant serfs could negotiate for their wages, and eventually some freedoms. Additionally, as people realized that the practices espoused by doctors and priests did not protect them from the plague, many started questioning prior beliefs. The dismantling of the feudal system and questioning of long-held beliefs contributed to a re-awakening that was a catalyst for the Renaissance.

The 1918 influenza pandemic, intertwined with World War I, also resulted in enormous labor shortages. In unprecedented numbers, women joined the workforce. Although the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) had been introduced over 40 years earlier, it finally was approved by Congress in the summer of 1919, sent to states for ratification, and was finalized in the summer of 1920. Clearly the rise of women in the labor market, catalyzed by the pandemic and the war, contributed to its success. Additionally, as people tossed their masks away, loosened their Victorian era corsets, and threw their weapons down, they exchanged them for cigarettes, knee-length dresses worn by flappers, movies, planes, and faster cars associated with the Roaring Twenties. The end of the pandemic and war didn’t return society to “normal”, but rather to a new normal, with novelty and breaks with tradition.

Likewise, the HIV/AIDS pandemic extracted a tragic toll, especially on young gay men. But the heartbreak of this loss, the stigma associated with the infection, and the inaction by government also ignited activism that paved the way for many rights and celebrations, including marriage equality and Pride month.

History shows us that out of the tragic ashes of pandemics, there are periods of extraordinary innovation and creativity. However, with the pandemic still burning in most of the world and with variants emerging that even threaten us in the U.S., why am I so optimistic? Because we have the tools to extinguish the pandemic fire! First, vaccine is the water to extinguish the pandemic fire. But even with the Delta variant causing those who are fully vaccinated to pause, we know from scientific studies from the last 16 months, that masking, ventilation, distancing all work to synergistically - especially with vaccines - to protect us. These form the major slices of the “Swiss cheese strategies” of layering protective measures so the virus cannot escape through any one layer’s holes, as it is blocked by the next layer.

As an aside, yes, we seem to be getting conflicting information on masking, but we’re really not. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends masking, even for those who are fully vaccinated. However, their audience is global. With only 11% of the world’s population fully vaccinated, and half of the world’s countries with fewer than 5% fully vaccinated, it is important that safety measures such as masking are generally maintained. Yes, the vaccine is protective and an effective fire suit, but as Dr. Fauci has said, that doesn’t mean one should walk into a fire with it. Most of the world is very much on fire with the pandemic, which means in most of the world, even those who are vaccinated should adhere to additional layers of protection, such as masking, distancing, and ventilation.
By contrast, US CDC guidance for the fully vaccinated is that we do not need to mask. With 47% of our country’s population fully vaccinated, the situation is far different from most of the world. Our incidence, hospitalization, and death rates are the lowest they have been since near the beginning of the pandemic in April of 2020. Here, the pandemic fire is simmered down. In most situations, the fire suit of vaccine is sufficient, and additional protective layers such as masking are not needed.

Nevertheless, there are exceptions. For example, in places like Los Angeles and St. Louis, where the disease rates are high or rising, and vaccine rates low, it makes sense to advise for additional layers of protection, even for the fully vaccinated. Again, the vaccine is a fire suit, but if you’re in the fire of a pandemic, you want additional layers. You want more layers of Swiss cheese so there are no holes the virus can escape through.

What does that mean for us in areas of the country with high rates of vaccine and low rates of disease? Officially, yes, the advice is that we don’t need to mask if we’re fully vaccinated. I agree with that. However, especially given the rise in variants such as the Delta strain with increased contagiousness, the rise in disease incidence in areas of rural Maine (where vaccine rates are lowest), and with those <12 not yet eligible for vaccine, there are situations I would consider masking, even if fully vaccinated. I am inclined to mask if I am indoors or in a crowded outdoor setting with a group of people I do not know their vaccine status or if they’re known to be mostly unvaccinated (e.g. a group of young children).

There are also places everyone must mask, as per federal guidance or rules. They include all healthcare and public transportation settings as well as many schools.

Back to other reasons for our collective existential crises and why I’m optimistic. What about climate change? Climate change is clearly one of if not the single biggest threat to our existence. Those of us over 50 remember when the weather was not making headlines every week. And the headlines are increasingly reminiscent of the Biblical descriptions of the battles of Armageddon. However, here again, science has opened up our tool box. We know much more about what is causing climate change and how to address it. Many of the technologies to replace fossil fuels have improved in effectiveness and cost. Political and public appetites for addressing climate change have grown. It is still very unsettling and we are far from overcoming the grave threats that climate change is presenting. 

However, we have many of the necessary tools in place.

What about political polarization and racism? Our country and our world have survived many analogous struggles with related political strife over the centuries, including those in previous peri-pandemic periods - the struggles of the serfs for freedom from slavery and for self-determination, the struggles of women to vote, and the struggles of gay people for equal rights. Although we are far from declaring victory on the struggles against political strife and racism, many of the tools are in place to address these more successfully - a wider recognition of the harms of these issues as well as an increasing collective desire and variety of options to address them. As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I am convinced that we will return to a new normal and this is also a time for celebration. We need to acknowledge the grief, the losses of this last 16 months - the people we lost, the celebrations we lost, the former life we lived. It has been a very difficult 16 months for all of us. But even if we feel weak, we are also stronger than 16 months ago. We may have wounds that need healing, but we have also slain dragons. We are stepping into a new normal, and importantly, one which we can create.

The founders of this country declared independence on this day 245 years ago. However, July 4, 1776 was not the end of the Revolutionary War. Many battles were fought before and after the Declaration. The Treaty of Paris wasn’t signed by the U.S. and Great Britain until 1783. The U.S. Constitution wasn’t fully adopted until 1788. But July 4, 1776 is the day we celebrate.

Indeed, today is the day we should celebrate and be grateful. That doesn’t mean there are not undertows of grief. That doesn’t mean there won’t be additional battles. We are far from signing a treaty with the pandemic. But do have our weapons - masking, distancing, ventilation. And most importantly, we have our own Declaration of Independence - Vaccination. Indeed, we have a bright future ahead of us and reasons today for celebration.