Gloria Steinem, Mother of Modern Feminism, Dies at 92

Gloria Steinem, the writer and political activist best known for being a founder of Ms. Magazine and widely considered a mother of modern feminism, has died at the age of 92. 

“Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her,” the Gloria Foundation posted on Instagram. “Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end.” 

Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1934 and graduated from Smith College with honors in 1956. In 1963, she auditioned to become a Playboy Bunny – an undercover assignment that shone a light on the world of toxic masculinity, sexual harassment, pitiful pay and racism. 

She helped to found New York magazine, where she was a political columnist and feature writer, in 1968. In 1971, she co-founded Ms. Magazine, in the process becoming one of the leading voices for the women’s equality movement at a time when economic and legal rights in American society still looked very different depending on your gender.

Steinem, with her trademark long, thick hair, aviator-style glasses and mini skirts,brought glamor to the movement and became the face of resistance — be that on the streets with placards and megaphones, or from the pages of magazines and newspapers.

In a 1998 article to celebrate the 30th anniversary of New York Magazine, she wrote: “I didn’t begin my life as an active feminist.” It was only in 1969, she admitted, when she was in her mid-30s and covering a “speak out” on abortion, that she realized the importance of feminism. 

“I remember one young woman talking about how a board of men at the hospital wanted her to tell them how she got pregnant – it was some kind of voyeuristic exercise,” she wrote. “One woman’s boyfriend had told her she couldn’t get pregnant if it was his second orgasm.”

“There was something about seeing women tell the truth about their lives in public, and seeing women take seriously something that only happens to women. In my experience, things were only taken seriously if they also happened to men. It made some sense of my own experience – I had had an abortion and had never told anyone. It was one of those moments when you ask, ‘Why? Who said?’”

Steinem spent much of her life travelling. “For 20 years, not a week went by when I wasn’t on a plane,” she wrote. But her enthusiasm for her work never waned. Among others, she helped to launch organizations including the Women’s Action Alliance, the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Women’s Media Center. She was fiercely pro-choice, acting as president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, working with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and serving on the board of Choice USA, among others. She also founded Take Our Daughters to Work Day. 

Steinem won many awards for both her writing and her activism, but community was a guiding force for all that she did. 

“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,” according to the Foundation’s Instagram post. 

And as Steinem wrote in her forthcoming book, 𝘈𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦, “I have now lived for more than fifty years in this brownstone, in rooms that have witnessed lives before mine, and will know others after I am gone.” —Emma Haslett.