Ok, before I tell you about hearing the ~fab~ Gloria Steinem speak, I will give you some background about my situation both in general and immediately prior to the event.

First off, I was recently accepted as a Daily Bruin intern for the Opinion section – yay! right? Well, mostly right. Unfortunately, as a member of a serious newspaper, you cannot be affiliated with any political organizations because it would reflect a bias back on the paper as a whole (this is an issue I could talk a lot about, but you are here to read about Glo’). So, I had to quit the Bruin Feminists for Equality club, but before I quit they let me know about this HAMMER Conversations between Mona Eltahawy and Gloria Steinem. I figured that since I have not finished my Daily Bruin training and since it’s just a conversation I could attend without there being a conflict of interest.

Second off, oh no! The conversation was scheduled to begin at 2:00 on Thursday, October 13th, which was right when my Psych 10 lecture begins. Normally, I would skip the freaking lecture for Gloria freaking Steinem but no! I had a curs-ed midterm (and in the middle of third week, no less). Luckily, my midterm only had 50 multiple-choice questions, which I chose to answer in less than a half hour. As soon as finished checking my work, I literally started sprinting to the HAMMER Museum.

I ran basically the whole time (crosswalk lights permitting), and it was like 90 degrees. But I didn’t care. Gloria Steinem was talking. I was sweating. I was missing Gloria Steinem talking. Which made me sweat more. Finally, the museum was in view, and I made a quick pit stop at Pete’s to grab water while I waited for the crosswalk to change.

Of course by the time I got there all of the seats in the theater were full, but they had set up an overflow room with a screen.

Side note: the overflow room was dark – I mean c’mon, they were doing a screening – but it didn’t need to be that dark. After being outside for a good ten minutes, my pupils had shrunk to the size of a grain of sand, so entering the dark room was one of the most disorienting experiences ever. I had to feel around for my seat, which I realized later must have been hilarious for the usher to watch. After about fifteen minutes, I had adjusted to the darkness and could see fairly well. Whenever people came in, the usher would guide them with a red light, and I would break from watching the conversation to see them fumble around looking for their seat. Very funny.

Anyway, the conversation was marvelous. It is always exciting to hear intellectual discussion of any kind and the fact that it was about equality was icing on the cake! I highly recommend going to a HAMMER Conversation and just going to the HAMMER in general.

I guess I didn’t talk to much about the talk itself, but I hope you enjoyed hearing about my time getting there!