Gloria Steinem, feminist icon and journalist, dies at 92

Gloria Steinem, the writer and activist who became the most recognizable face of American feminism’s second wave, died Wednesday at her home in New York City at age 92. Her foundation said she “passed away peacefully,” surrounded by people who loved her, and that she “continued working for equality until the very end.”

What did Steinem actually do to become so influential?

Born March 25, 1934 (some outlets say 1935), in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem had an unstable childhood: her father was a traveling salesman, her parents separated when she was around 10 or 11, and she took on caretaking duties for her mother, Ruth, who suffered from mental illness and depression. She didn’t attend school full-time until she was about 12. After graduating from Smith College in the late 1950s, she spent two years in India on a research scholarship, working as a legal clerk and helping village women organize nonviolent protests — an experience that shaped her interest in grassroots organizing.

She moved to New York in the early 1960s to freelance. Her breakthrough came in 1963 with “A Bunny’s Tale,” an undercover exposé for Show magazine in which she posed as a Playboy Club waitress using the name “Marie” to document the low pay, physical strain and sexist treatment bunnies endured — an assignment she later said she regretted, even as it dogged her career (“when people don’t like me they introduce me as a former Bunny,” she told the New York Times in 2016). She went on to help found New York Magazine in 1968, and her essay “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” helped establish her as a feminist voice. In 1972 she co-founded Ms. Magazine, one of the first mainstream publications built around issues like abortion, equal pay and domestic violence rather than housekeeping and beauty. She also helped start the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Women’s Action Alliance, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Women’s Media Center and the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Steinem had an illegal abortion in London at age 22, an experience she later cited publicly while campaigning for reproductive rights; she celebrated the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling and, decades later, witnessed its 2022 reversal. She also campaigned against female genital mutilation, the death penalty, domestic violence and pornography, opposed the Vietnam and Gulf wars, supported same-sex marriage and equal pay, and backed causes including Black Lives Matter and Korean reunification. In 1984 she was arrested protesting apartheid outside the South African embassy in Washington. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She married David Bale, a South African-born entrepreneur and father of actor Christian Bale, in 2000; he died in 2003.

How are tributes describing her?

Hillary Clinton, who Steinem supported in her 2016 presidential run, called her “one of the architects of the entire structure of women’s equality” and said she was “heartsick” at the news, urging young women to see that “the fight is worth it.” Nancy Pelosi called her “a fearless trailblazer.” Meghan Markle described her as a “friend and mentor,” Patti Smith called her “the greatest,” and Jill Biden said Steinem’s “voice changed our country.” Steinem’s own foundation emphasized her ability “to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” noting she spent her final years hosting “Talking Circles” at her Manhattan home and working on a forthcoming book, “An Unexpected Life.” Neighbors near her Upper East Side townhouse left flowers and tributes at her door.

Where do the outlets differ in emphasis?

Coverage overlaps heavily on biography but varies in focus and depth.

Why does her death resonate so widely?

Steinem spent six decades as a public face of feminism, appearing at rallies and campuses well into her 80s, and her death lands amid ongoing debate over reproductive rights following Roe’s reversal — a fight she had spent fifty years shaping and, by her own account, never stopped fighting.

Sources

• The Guardian World — Gloria Steinem, groundbreaking feminist campaigner, dies aged 92 · Hillary Clinton leads tributes to Gloria Steinem: ‘Her activism was rooted in optimism’
• France24
• BBC World — Feminist activist and journalist Gloria Steinem dies, aged 92 · How Gloria Steinem changed the lives of generations of women
• Al Jazeera
• Deutsche Welle World

Featured photo: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)