Gloria Steinem, the activist who helped sustain and drive the feminist movement during the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century, through struggles for reproductive rights, economic equality, sexual harassment, self-esteem development, and other issues affecting the lives of millions of women, passed away on September 2, at the age of 92, in her home in New York City.
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Her death was announced by her Gloria Foundation on social media, and the cause of death was not specified.
Calling herself a “social change entrepreneur,” the journalist and founder of Ms. magazine also became a symbol of the second wave of feminism: the expansion of the movement beyond women’s suffrage toward a broader campaign for equality in the workplace, at home, in the courts, and before the law.
“Deep down, I think a woman has two choices,” Steinem once said. “Either she is a feminist or she is a masochist,” she added.
Her aviator glasses and her blonde hair with highlights, parted in the middle, made her one of the most recognizable women in the world, The New York Times noted.
Christine Stansell, a history professor at the University of Chicago, once wrote in Glamour magazine that Steinem “was to the feminist movement what Martin Luther King Jr. was to civil rights: the catalyst.”
She was an atypical revolutionary, the newspaper noted. She was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, and was named after her older sister’s favorite doll. Her father was a traveling antiques dealer but also managed a summer resort complex on the shores of a lake in Michigan, where, from a very young age, Steinem was fascinated by the musicians who passed through to play.
When she was 10 years old, her parents divorced, and she was left in the care of her mother in Toledo, a journalist who had left her job to care for her children. The woman suffered from deep mental anguish and became addicted to sodium pentothal, which she took to ease her distress.
Steinem, The Wall Street Journal noted, described her mother disappearing down the street in a nightgown, or lying in bed “with her eyes closed and her lips occasionally moving in response to voices only she could hear.” Steinem would bring her coffee and bologna sandwiches. She often said, referring to the women of her generation: “Most of us are living the unlived lives of our mothers.”
Her formal education was limited to sixth grade, and her big dream, as an aspiring tap dancer, was to become a Rockette with the prestigious dance company that performs at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.
After graduating from Smith College in 1956, Steinem received a scholarship to travel and write in India, where, for two years, she discovered the fundamental role women had played in the Indian independence movement, The Wall Street Journal noted. Before leaving the United States, Steinem wrote a note to her college boyfriend, breaking off their engagement. “I felt that if I got married, it would be the last option I’d have. My life would be over,” she said on the podcast Design Matters in 2022.
In 1960, she arrived in New York intending to be a journalist, but at first only got occasional jobs through classified ads such as dancing at supermarket openings, posing next to a cork while a magician threw knives, among others.
However, what outraged her most was writing the articles that editors then asked women to write. “The worst moment of my life” was “writing about textured stockings” for the New York Times, she noted.
Her big break came in 1963 with an article for Show magazine about her undercover work as a “bunny” in scant uniform at the Playboy Club. Her piece denounced the degradation and low wages to which women working with Hugh Hefner were subjected. According to The Washington Post, her story was published in Show magazine in 1963 and revealed the traits that would define Steinem in her later role as an activist: an entrepreneurial spirit, a deep concern for the most vulnerable, and a formidable ability to bring visibility to their cause.
In 1968, editor Clay Felker hired her as part of the inaugural team of writers for New York magazine, which also included Jimmy Breslin and Tom Wolfe, two of the leading figures of New Journalism. There, Steinem wrote one of the first reports for major media on the feminist movement, covering a pro-abortion demonstration in Greenwich Village in 1969, where women shared stories about terminating their pregnancies.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Steinem, at 22 years old, had undergone an abortion in London on her way to India but had never spoken about it. During the public talk in Greenwich Village, she felt deeply shocked by her own silence and the invisibility of these stories in society at large. “I started reading all the feminist texts that fell into my hands and talking to all the active feminists I found,” she recalled in one of her books, “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” (1983).
Steinem rose to fame in the 1960s not as an activist but as a successful freelance journalist for publications like Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue. She experienced firsthand the sexism she would later fight against on behalf of other women. She recalled a conversation in a taxi between renowned writers Gay Talese and Saul Bellow, in which Talese commented in her presence: “You know every year a pretty girl comes to New York pretending to be a writer? Well, Gloria is this year’s pretty girl.”
Thanks to her perseverance, Steinem overcame professional prejudices that limited most female journalists to covering topics like fashion and courtship. Her ease with celebrities—she dated men like filmmaker Mike Nichols, wrote a profile of John Lennon, and spent a week with Lee Radziwill for an article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s globe-trotting sister—made her a highly sought-after figure in her own right. By the late 1960s, her name was mentioned alongside writers like Tom Wolfe and Susan Sontag.
On January 21, 2017, a day after Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, Steinem arrived at the National Mall to address the Women’s March in Washington, a massive gathering protesting a president who had boasted about groping women and against the society that, despite this, had elected him.
“You look fantastic! I wish you could see yourselves! It’s like an ocean!” she shouted to the crowd of nearly half a million people in front of her. “This is the positive side of adversity. It’s an explosion of energy and true democracy like I’ve never seen in my long life.”
During Trump’s political rise, she became one of his fiercest critics, repeatedly arguing that his rhetoric and conduct contradicted the values she had defended throughout her life.
Thus, in the days following Trump’s electoral victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, Steinem made it clear that she would not emotionally resign herself to the outcome, although she accepted it democratically. “I’m not going to disobey the law, but I’m not going to pretend he represents me,” she told WNYC’s The Takeaway program and added that she refused to accept him as a reflection of her beliefs.
Her statements came amid widespread protests and demonstrations after the elections, many led by women concerned about the country’s future.
One of Steinem’s most memorable criticisms came in 2017, when the #MeToo movement transformed conversations about sexual misconduct and accountability.
In her speech at the Massachusetts Women’s Conference, Steinem criticized a culture that, she said, had long allowed abusive behavior by powerful men. During her speech, she referred to Trump as the “chief harasser,” a harsh critique that made national headlines.
The comment came as numerous women who had previously accused Trump of inappropriate sexual conduct reiterated their calls for their allegations to be taken seriously. The Republican president has repeatedly denied the accusations against him.
Despite her opposition to Trump, Steinem also argued that his presidency had unwittingly energized political participation.
In a 2019 conversation with lawyer Gloria Allred, Steinem argued that “Donald Trump has made us aware,” suggesting that his presidency had spurred activism and increased public awareness around issues affecting women and marginalized groups.
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