I found my voice as I neared 50. It was shaky and wobbly and I stumbled around badly, but I had it. My book, Lake Effect, about the pollution in my hometown of Waukegan, Illinois had just been published and I was about to address 1000 women gathered in Pittsburgh at the behest of Mrs. Heinz Kerry. We were going to talk about the links between women’s health and the environment and I was the keynote speaker. No matter that I hadn’t given a speech since high school. Terrified is the only word that could describe what I felt when I thought about what I had agreed to do.
I wrote my speech and rented a podium to rehearse that sat in my living room for a month before my appearance in Pittsburgh. I required that friends and family sit in the big soft chair in my living room as I practiced and they did so more or less willingly until my big day arrived.
Moments before I climbed the podium to make my speech, I texted my husband my mantra and the only reason that I felt it possible to climb those steps. The topic I was going to address—pollution, the Great Lakes, the escalating rates of cancers that women must endure—those things were much bigger than me. MCH BGGER THN ME. I had found my voice and was willing to deal with my fears only because I had something to say. I needed to be heard, and I am not alone.
Despite our obvious experience and stake in multiple issues of national importance, women are still underrepresented in the debate around the most important issues of the day. Unfortunately, taking a public stand on an issue of national importance is not something women do with great regularity or ease—especially women like me. Moms, women with laundry to do and grey hair and husbands whose jobs seem to grow with the same lightning speed as our children.
