Leslie Morgan Steiner, writer: "Aging can be glorious"

The luminous face and vitality of Leslie Morgan Steiner (Washington, 57 years old) hide a very hard experience as a victim of male violence that the writer has managed to transform into an example of overcoming herself.

Four decades after having lived in Spain as a student, this expert on women's issues and former columnist for

newspaper recently returned to Madrid for a brief stay in which she verified "how far Spain has advanced in women's rights and how far it has America has regressed in the last five years.

Her assessment is resounding: “Change is possible, but also very fragile;

You have to fight to keep it."

Ask.

Her latest book,

(The naked truth), addresses the phenomenon of aging and sexuality in women.

What is her naked truth on this matter?

Answer.

What is heard and read about aging women is extremely negative.

But I didn't have that experience.

I divorced the father of my children when he was 49 and it was a rebirth.

I started dating much younger men.

And I loved it.

It's exactly what a middle-aged man does in those circumstances: he dates younger women to feed his ego.

I had spent my life ridiculing such men.

Nevertheless, I did it and I loved it.

I wanted to write it.

Aging can be glorious.

Q.

And you come to these conclusions after an impressive experience as a victim of gender violence.

He is struck by how he tells it: calmly, even humorously.

But he talks about an experience as harsh as having a loaded gun held over his head.

A.

More times than I can remember.

Q.

How did you feel in those moments?

A.

It was so gradual that I became numb.

At that time I was never afraid.

He would put the loaded gun against my temple and by the fourth or fifth time he would even say to myself: 'oh, come on.'

He could have killed me at any time, but then I was blocked because I had to survive.

Now it terrifies me to think about it.

The day after those episodes, he was again funny, charming and loving.

That was one of the reasons that made it so difficult to leave him.

Until I couldn't anymore.

In the last beating he was so aggressive and I saw so clearly that he was going to kill me that my whole denial strategy broke.

So, I got really scared.

It still makes me shudder to think about it.

I haven't seen him again in 30 years.

Q.

Then you broke the silence, something that you consider crucial to put an end to this type of situation.

A.

It took me a long time.

Five years in total.

At first, she couldn't think or speak it.

But five years later I had remarried and had my first child.

I felt safe and wanted to try to understand what had happened to me.

I started writing

, it got published and I started talking about it.

I think it's key to break the silence, but also to do it in a way that others can hear.

If I had been crying or very negative about my experience, I don't think the audience would have been able to pick up on it.

That's why I tried to use humor.

Q.

You have continued to use it.

Now his speech has evolved towards messages like: "Yes, I'm over 50 and I'm wearing a bikini."

A.

[Laughs].

Yes, I try to be accessible and to break stereotypes.

Q.

In addition to your work as a newspaper columnist, you were managing editor of

magazine for five years.

What should the journalistic business model be like to be sustainable today?

A.

[He thinks about it].

I wish I had solutions.

What I believe, very fervently, is that we need journalists.

There is no society that can function without a free and independent press.

's solution

has always been to have very wealthy owners.

That has worked.

There are other models, such as subsidized public media.

I would not want to live in a society that does not have freedom of the press.

If I came and told you: 'I am going to have well-paid journalists and writers in all parts of the world and we are going to make a daily newspaper', you would say: 'I am not going to invest in that, it is a ridiculous business from the point of view of profit'.

Yes, but it is essential for humanity.

Q.

How is the situation of women in the United States evolving?

R.

There is nothing that admits more of a black and white analysis than the situation between Obama and Biden, on the one hand, and Trump, on the other.

Biden is a champion for women.

Already with Obama she laid the foundations for the protection of women victims of gender violence.

Trump did everything he could to undermine it.

He withdrew all protection against sex crimes, plus Supreme Court appointments… I've voted Republican in the past, but now I don't respect them at all.

It's scary and it's gross.

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