Silent, or Unheard?

Gloria Steinem

They called us the Silent Generation. We weren’t silent. We just couldn’t be heard above the din of the generations on either side. Mine was the smallest generation in America. Fewer than 40 million babies were born during the fifteen years from 1931 through 1945, roughly the years of the Great Depression and World War II, when would-be parents lacked jobs or were forced apart by war. (Boundaries are porous. Some say my generation begins in 1921, or’25, and ends in 1941, ‘42 or ’45. I identify with those born from 1932 to 1945, people who today are anywhere from 65 to 79.) 


Almost 43 million children were born in the 15 years preceding my generation and a whopping near 60 million in the 14 following. Sandwiched between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers, we’re the ignored middle child overshadowed by the lavishly praised, heroic older brother, who fought a war to finally make the world safe for democracy and the indulged, noisy kid who, (with unacknowledged help from us) sparked the social and cultural revolution we’re still living with today. We middle kids are ignored or called bad names—conformist, anxious, wishy-washy, wimpy. 


But unnoticed middle children are free to invent themselves, as many of us did. A 1951 Time magazine essay popularized the term “Silent Generation,” calling it “a still, small flame” that does not “does not issue manifestos, make speeches or carry posters.” Tell that to Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Gloria Steinem, and Eldridge Cleaver. A lot of us were unconventional in one way or another: Jane Goodall studied chimps in Africa; Ram Dass studied LSD at Harvard. And many of us—Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin come to mind—made plenty of noise. Now our generation is dying off, shrinking more and more every day. But we’re still making noise and want to be heard. I’ll be speaking out as one member of the generation that can’t seem to shut up.