Gloria Steinem (1934-2026): Feminist icon who redefined the modern women’s movement

Gloria Steinem, the American writer, lecturer, activist, and organiser who fought for gender equality and women’s civil and reproductive rights for more than five decades, died on September 2. She was 92 years old.“Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her,” Gloria’s Foundation said in a statement posted on Instagram on September 3, without specifying the cause of death. Tributes poured in from political leaders, activists and cultural figures from across the globe.With her signature long, blonde-streaked, centre-parted hair and aviator glasses, Steinem was the glamorous, hip symbol of the feminist movement, which she emphasised should embrace women of every race. She championed the movement from the late 1960s onwards and inspired generations of women.“Being a feminist means that you see the world as whole instead of half,” she once said. “It shouldn’t need a name, and one day it won’t.”Steinem was born March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, the second of two children of Leo Steinem, an itinerant antiques salesman, and the former Ruth Nuneviller, a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of the school newspaper at the University of Toledo. She spent summers as a child in Clark Lake, Michigan, where her parents ran a summer resort. Her parents separated when she was 10, and Steinem lived with and cared for her mother, who had suffered several nervous breakdowns. Because the family moved frequently, she did not attend school regularly until about seventh grade. The experience impacted Steinem’s views on social injustice and marriage, which she believed robbed women of choices and many of their civil rights.“I’d already been the very small parent of a very big child, my mother. I didn’t want to end up taking care of someone else,” she was quoted as saying.Journalism of courageAfter graduating from Western High School in Washington, DC, Steinem attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she studied government. In 1956, after receiving a bachelor’s degree, she won a fellowship to spend two years writing and doing research in India. She learned about grassroots organising from followers of Mahatma Gandhi and spent time travelling and listening to ordinary women’s stories about their lives and problems.Also Read | Street theatre’s feminist insurgent history finally gets its dueOn her way to India, at 22 and recently having broken off an engagement, Steinem had an illegal abortion, she recounted in her 2015 book My Life on the Road. The British physician who helped her obtain the procedure made her promise two things: that she would not reveal his name and that “you will do what you want to do with your life,” she wrote. “I’ve done the best I could with my life,” she said, naming the long-dead doctor and adding: “This book is for you.”Upon her return, Steinem moved to New York, where she wrote for Esquire, LIFE, Glamour and other national publications.

Gloria Steinem as a Playboy Bunny. | Photo Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images In 1963, she worked as a Playboy bunny for 11 days for a story for Show magazine. Her two-part groundbreaking exposé, “A Bunny’s Tale”, detailed the poor pay and sexist treatment Playboy bunnies, originally waitstaff, endured. The story was made into a 1985 TV movie starring Kirstie Alley.In 1968, Steinem helped found New York Magazine, where her essay titled “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” established her as a feminist leader at a time of roiling social change. But it was not until she attended an abortion speak-out in a New York church the following year that Steinem said her life as a feminist activist really began.“That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me,” Steinem told the AP in an email in 2022, reflecting on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. “Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy.”Steinem remained a regular contributor to New York Magazine under editor Clay Felker. In 1972, with financial backing from Felker, Steinem and a group of feminists founded Ms. magazine. The publication aimed to avoid the emphasis on clothes, beauty and homemaking that dominated magazines published for women at the time. Ms. took its name from the female honorific that had only started to come into use to replace “Miss” and “Mrs”. Steinem remained a consulting editor throughout her life.

Gloria Steinem, cofounder of Ms. magazine, speaks on the political subjugation of women and the importance of organising across racial and social differences, to an audience at the College of Marin in Kenfield, Calif., on Jan. 17, 1973. | Photo Credit: Bill Young/San Francisco Chronicle via AP An early issue included the names of 52 women, including Steinem, who had had abortions, and called for the procedure to be legalised ahead of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognised women’s constitutional right to abortion in the US for nearly half a century.Steinem founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 with former US Representatives Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm and writer Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique ushered in the second wave of feminism. In 1977, she helped organise the first National Women’s Conference in Houston, which brought together the largest-ever group of women from all walks of life to develop a feminist agenda. Both Republican and Democratic delegates attended, along with some 20,000 observers. Steinem served as a go-between among minority delegates at a meeting whose purpose she described as coming up with “democratic answers to the classic question: what do women want?”.Steinem also pushed the women’s movement to include the concerns of minorities: “If you’ve suffered discrimination, you’re sensitive to it on every level. I learned feminism largely from Black women. Women of colour basically invented feminism,” she told The New Yorker.Steinem was often critical of the limitations of marriage. “Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it,” she said. She had no children of her own, and it was not until she turned 66 that she decided to wed South African businessman and environmentalist David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale.“I hope this proves what feminists have always said—that feminism is about the ability to choose what’s right at each time of our lives,” she said in a statement about the marriage. In a later interview, she added, “If I had married when I was supposed to get married, I would have lost my name, my legal residence, my credit rating and many of my civil rights. That’s not true anymore.”Champion of rightsSteinem continued working into her 80s. She wrote numerous books, including 1986’s Marilyn: Norma Jean about Marilyn Monroe, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem about personal development, and books of essays.She narrated and conceived the idea for an Emmy Award-winning documentary about child abuse, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories, for HBO in 1993 and produced the Lifetime film Better Off Dead. She also hosted Woman, a documentary series about violence against women, for the Viceland TV channel.In 2013, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour. She continued to battle for equal rights for women, founding the Women’s Media Center with actor Jane Fonda and writer Robin Morgan in 2005 to increase the number of women’s voices as sources, executives, and reporters in the news and other media. Time hardly slowed Steinem down; well into her 80s, she was travelling the globe and speaking out on issues of importance to her. These included everything from genital mutilation to Korean reconciliation, but equality for women took precedence.

US President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on November 20, 2013, in Washington, DC. | Photo Credit: Mandel NGAN/AFP As the years went on, Steinem’s visibility endured. At 83, she sat in the front row of her first fashion show, guest of designer Prabal Gurung. A few days after her 85th birthday, she was leading a women’s “talking circle” at an off-Broadway play celebrating her life, where, one by one, women in the audience, many fighting back tears, rose to thank her and tell their own stories of discrimination.In 2020, her life was the subject of a feature film, The Glorias, starring Julianne Moore and based on her 2015 memoir My Life on the Road. Directed by Julie Taymor, the film depicted Steinem’s life across the years. She was also the subject of a 2018 play, Gloria: A Life, and a 2011 HBO documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words.At 91, she collaborated on a picture book with Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee aimed at inspiring young people to change the world. Rise, Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey. Together for All was published in February 2026.The constant visibility came with a price; even into her older years, Steinem expressed frustration that despite her accomplishments, she was often described as beautiful or glamorous. A 1992 Vanity Fair profile even noted her “spectacular racehorse legs”. It was a label she said unfairly detracted from her message.“Nobody ever called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist, and that was in my mid-30s,” she told AP in a 2011 interview. “It was clear that label was being assigned to me. The most hurtful part is that you work very hard, and people say it’s because of your looks.”Steinem also dealt with hostility, and sometimes it came from surprising places. Appearing on Larry King’s talk show on CNN in 1990, she was visibly stunned when a female caller greeted her cheerfully, then told her to “rot in hell” because she had ruined “the beautiful American family”.But by then, she noted, at least people were taking feminists seriously. That was not the case in 1972, when she co-founded Ms. magazine and many commentators, especially male ones, dismissed it as ridiculous, predicting an early demise.Among Steinem’s detractors was President Richard Nixon, who was caught on an Oval Office tape ridiculing both her and the “Ms.” title. The ridicule was mutual: In a 1972 National Press Club speech, Steinem called Nixon “the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon”. It was just one example of Steinem’s trademark wit.Steinem has also faced controversy over her alleged links to CIA-funded political work, a bitter feud with feminists such as Betty Friedan over gaining “celebrity status” within the movement, criticism of her 1998 defence of Bill Clinton during sexual misconduct allegations, and backlash over her early writings on transgender people. She later revised or clarified some of those positions.Also Read | Digital monoculture is remaking feminist solidarityAccording to her foundation’s post, Steinem spent her recent years doing the two things she loved most: spending time in the community with others and writing. She hosted talking circles for hundreds of people in her home and died just before a planned memoir was to be released this fall.“She has welcomed hundreds of guests into her living room for Talking Circles, a tradition she insisted will continue long after she is no longer with us,” the foundation said.“Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end,” her foundation added.Author Carolyn Heilbrun, who penned the 1995 biography Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem, described her as “the epitome of female beauty and the quintessence of female revolution”.(With inputs from agencies.)