Who Was Gloria Steinem? A feminist icon who fought for women’s rights for six decades dies at the age of 92. Today’s news

Gloria Steinem, the famous writer, journalist and activist who became one of the most influential voices of the women’s movement in the US, has died at the age of 92.

Steinem died Wednesday (September 2) at her home in New York after a period of declining health, according to a post on her social media accounts. She recently completed a memoir to be published this fall.

Steinem campaigned for gender equality for more than six decades and became a defining figure in the feminist movement. With her distinctive aviator glasses and streaked hair, she was a highly recognizable presence at rallies, marches, college campuses and community events across the US and around the world.

“Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” said a post announcing her death. “Her words, actions and example gave people permission to be their truest selves.”

From journalism to feminism

Steinem began her professional career as a journalist. In 1963, she went undercover to report on working conditions at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club, an experience she later said she regretted.

Her career took a decisive turn a few years later after she attended a meeting where women publicly shared their experiences and advocated for abortion rights. Steinem, who herself had an illegal abortion at age 22, said the experience moved her toward activism.

“That speaking out was the beginning of activism for me,” she said in a 2022 interview as she considered overturning the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

Steinem became an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights, arguing that control over one’s own body is the foundation of equality and democracy.

A leading voice of the women’s movement

In 1972, Stein co-founded the magazine Ms. Magazine, which became an important platform for feminist writing and helped bring women’s issues into the mainstream of public debate.

Due to her prominence, she became the target of criticism. Some commentators dismissed the magazine at its launch and predicted it would quickly disappear. Then-President Richard Nixon was also recorded mocking Steinem and the publication’s name.

Steinem often responded to hostility with humor and became known for sharp and memorable lines. Before marrying at the age of 66, she famously quipped about her long single life: “I can’t mate in captivity.”

Her wit was accompanied by a willingness to confront issues ranging from reproductive rights and workplace discrimination to female genital mutilation and international human rights.

Fighting stereotypes

Despite her public influence, Steinem has often criticized the media’s focus on her appearance.

She objected to being described primarily as beautiful or glamorous, arguing that such descriptions diminished her decades of political and intellectual work.

“No one called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist,” she said in a 2011 interview.

Nevertheless, its visibility lasted for decades. Even in her 80s, Steinem continued to travel and speak publicly, maintaining the same commitment to women’s equality that defined her career.

“Being a feminist means you see the world as a whole, not half of it,” she once said.

A legacy that transcended feminism

Steinem’s influence reached generations of activists and writers. Her life became the subject of the 2020 film The Glorias, A Life on the Road, while she continued to work with younger activists and authors until the end of her life.

At 91, she collaborated with Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee on the children’s picture book Rise, Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey. Together for all, released in February.

Friend and fellow activist Abigail Disney, who visited Steinem at her Manhattan home shortly before her death, said Steinem remained mentally sharp even as he became physically frail.

“She was as funny and sharp as I’ve ever known her,” Disney said, adding that generosity and kindness were central to Steinem’s activism.

Steinem leaves a legacy that has helped reshape the American conversation about women’s rights, equality, and reproductive freedom. Her activism, writing and public presence made her one of the most respected figures in the modern feminist movement, a role she embraced for more than 60 years.

A childhood spent on the road

Steinem was born on March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio. Her father worked as a traveling antiques salesman, and Steinem spent most of her early childhood traveling with her parents instead of attending a conventional school.

She later recalled that she was educated mostly by reading. Her childhood changed dramatically in 1944 when her parents divorced. At just 10 years old, Steinem found herself helping to care for her mother, a former journalist who struggled to balance work and running the household and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown.

As a child, Steinem was an accomplished tap dancer and once imagined that dance might provide her escape from Toledo. Instead, she attended Smith College in the 1950s.

At the time, she believed that women were largely educated to become wives and mothers. However, marriage was not part of the future she envisioned for herself.

From India to New York journalism

After college, Steinem accepted a modest scholarship that allowed her to travel to India. She later moved to Manhattan and pursued a career in journalism.

But the opportunities available to female journalists were limited. Steinem wanted to write about politics, while editors often assigned her stories about food, fashion and lifestyle.

One assignment she particularly disliked was an article about textured stockings. She also recalled an unsettling encounter with an editor who offered her an inconvenient choice: spend the afternoon with him in a hotel or send him letters.

At the time, she said, there was no widely used term for sexual harassment. “It was just life,” she later recalled.

The Playboy assignment that changed her career

In 1963, Steinem accepted a secret job for Show magazine that required her to pose as a Playboy Bunny and work at the Playboy Club.

She originally assumed she would fail the audition. Instead, she was hired and worked at the club for about a month, documenting the conditions faced by the women employed there.

The resulting article attracted her attention, but Steinem later came to see the experience as a mistake. She said it made it difficult to get assignments in the short term and was later repeatedly used by critics to ridicule her.

However, her journalism gradually became more political when she was 30 years old and joined the editorial board of New York magazine.

Abortion rights became a turning point

Steinem turned into a women’s rights activist in 1969 when she covered hearings on abortion rights.

At the time, she never spoke publicly about having an illegal abortion in London at the age of 22. The hearing forced her to confront her own experience and helped set her on a path to activism.

In 1971, Steinem joined Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Bella Abzug in founding the National Women’s Political Committee.

She also began developing her skills as a public speaker. Although initially uncomfortable with public speaking, she found a powerful partner in Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a black feminist and child welfare advocate.

Their partnership helped challenge the notion that feminism was primarily a white, middle-class movement. The famous photo of two women raising their fists in a Black Power salute became an enduring image of the era.

The birth of Ms. magazine

One of the defining moments of Steinem’s career came in 1972, when she co-founded the magazine Ms.

Steinem was initially concerned that the publication would fail and embarrass the women’s movement. Critics openly predicted that he would not survive.

Instead, Ms. became a major platform for feminist ideas and helped bring topics such as discrimination, reproductive rights, and women’s equality into the mainstream of American debate.

Steinem remained involved with the magazine after it was sold to the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2001, continuing as an advisor.

Challenging conventional ideas about marriage and motherhood

Steinem never had children and said she never regretted the decision.

She saw her choice as part of the freedom women should have in determining their own lives rather than being expected to become mothers.

Marriage also came much later than most women of her generation. In 2000, at the age of 66, Steinem married British activist and businessman David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale.

The marriage was unexpected even for Steinem. She later joked that she hadn’t changed her views on marriage—marriage itself had.

The couple married in a Cherokee ceremony in Oklahoma. Bale later developed brain lymphoma and was cared for by Steinem until his death in 2003.

A lifetime on the road

Steinem became famous for her distinctive look, including highlighted hair and large aviator glasses. She once explained that her hairstyle was inspired by Holly Golightly, the character played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The glasses, she said, were partly “more about concealment.”

Her public exposure sometimes came with hostility and personal attacks. Still, she often responded with humor.

She also continued to travel extensively. Her 2015 memoir, Life on the Road, reflected her decades of speaking and organizing work.

Ironically, Steinem never learned to drive. Driving, she said, would rob her of the opportunity to talk to the people who picked her up at airports and train stations — including taxi drivers, whom she particularly enjoyed chatting with.

Women’s March 2017

Steinem remained an important public figure well into her 80s.

On January 21, 2017, she was among the featured speakers at the historic Women’s March on Washington, where hundreds of thousands of women gathered.

Addressing the crowd, Steinem emphasized solidarity and collective action, telling protesters that they are connected and that their rally will change them because they are together.

The moment underscored the continuing influence she had on generations of activists.

A legacy built on choice

Although Steinem became one of the most recognizable faces of feminism, she often rejected the idea that she alone changed history. She believed that if she didn’t take it on, someone else would eventually.

Her message to the younger generations was similarly focused less on watching her than on discovering their own identity.

“The primary thing is not that they know who I am,” she said, “but that they know who THEY are.”

This idea perhaps best sums up Steinem’s legacy: not only that she became a powerful voice for women, but that she spent more than six decades arguing that women should be free to choose who they want to be.