No Wonder! Loopy genes. Terribly skewed reality.
Early life and education
Gloria Marie Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio,[4] to Ruth (née Nuneviller) and Leo Steinem. Her mother was Presbyterian, mostly of German (including Prussian) and some Scottish descent.[12][13] Her father was Jewish, the son of immigrants from Württemberg, Germany, and Radziejów, Poland.[13][14][15] Her paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, chaired the educational committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association, was a delegate to the 1908 International Council of Women, and was the first woman to be elected to the Toledo Board of Education. She was also a leader in the movement for vocational education[16] and rescued many members of her family from the Holocaust.[16]
The Steinems lived and traveled in a trailer, from which Leo carried out his trade as a roaming antiques dealer.[16] Before Gloria was born, her mother, Ruth, then age 34, had according to Steinem "a 'nervous breakdown', as [Ruth] and everyone else called it" that left her an invalid, trapped in delusional fantasies that sometimes turned violent.[17] Steinem said that Ruth changed "from an energetic, fun-loving, book-loving" woman into "someone who was afraid to be alone, who could not hang on to reality long enough to hold a job, and who could rarely concentrate enough to read a book".[17] Ruth spent long periods in and out of sanatoriums for the mentally ill.[17] Steinem was ten years old when her parents separated in 1944.[17] Her father went to California to find work, while she and her mother continued to live together in Toledo.[18][17]
Although her parents divorced under the strain of her mother's illness, Steinem did not attribute it to male chauvinism. She said she "understood and never blamed him for the breakup".[19] The impact of these events shaped her personality. Her father, a traveling salesman, had never provided financial stability, and his departure aggravated their situation.[20] Steinem concluded that her mother's inability to hold a job reflected broader hostility toward working women.[20] She also believed that doctors' apathy toward her mother stemmed from similar anti-woman animus.[20] Years later, Steinem described her mother's experience as pivotal to her understanding of social injustices.[21]: 129–138 These perspectives convinced Steinem that women lacked social and political equality.[21]