IN A RECENT INTERVIEW with Time magazine, Gloria Steinem was asked what she would do if she knew she had only two years to live. This is a strange question to ask a 77-year-old woman, but this is what she said in reply:

Mainly seeing friends, my chosen family. And writing about what I believe, which is that things are a circle, not a hierarchy: the women’s movement and the antiracist movement and the gay movement and the environmental movement are all linked. And maybe living with elephants. I do still want to live with elephants.[emphasis added]

Steinem is refreshingly honest. She would fit in better with a herd of elephants. In a herd, she would find some of the uniformity and sameness she longs for.

However, leaving aside the difficulties of a 77-year-old urbanite fitting in with such different creatures, I believe Steinem would still have trouble locating that pure, elusive circle. Life is hierarchical even among elephants. Correct me if I’m wrong, but male elephants don’t do 50 percent of the child care. Aren’t they bigger and stronger? Steinem would be tooting the feminist horn in her elephant existence too.

Elephants have reproductive freedom but not in Steinem’s sense, which is the freedom not to reproduce.

Also, elephants don’t “choose” family and they don’t feel guilty about liking elephants better than giraffes. In that sense, they are like millions of ordinary human beings. Choice has nothing to do with it.

I don’t think Gloria would be happy as an elephant any more than she has liked human society.

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