Gloria Steinem, the prominent American journalist and feminist whose tireless advocacy advanced women’s rights across the globe, has passed away at the age of 92.
Steinem “passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her”, according to an announcement published on her Instagram account.
“Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end,” the statement continued. “Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard. Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves.”
Through rigorous investigative reporting, public speaking, and grassroots activism, Steinem succeeded in bringing feminist perspectives into mainstream discourse. As the author of nine books, she directed campaigns tackling domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, the pornography trade, as well as the military conflicts in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. In addition, she championed causes such as Black Lives Matter, the reunification of the Korean peninsula, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, and the Time’s Up movement. Back in 1984, she faced arrest during an anti-apartheid demonstration staged outside the South African embassy situated in Washington, DC.
Born in Ohio in 1934, Steinem spent much of her youth living in a trailer. Because her mother battled mental health issues, holding steady employment proved difficult, resulting in recurrent stays in psychiatric institutions. Following her parents’ separation when she was 10 years old, Steinem resided with her mother in a dilapidated house in Toledo, where she first witnessed the societal prejudice directed toward working women.
After completing her studies at a women’s liberal arts institution in 1956, Steinem relocated to India for two years, serving as a legal clerk within the Supreme Court of India. Upon returning to the United States, she took on the role of director at the Independent Research Service, an organization funded as a CIA front that enlisted American college students to counter Soviet influence at the World Youth Festivals held in Vienna and Helsinki. Steinem subsequently acknowledged that she had been aware of the funding source all along, noting: “If I had a choice I would do it again.”
Clay Felker, the editor of Esquire magazine, gave Steinem her initial major journalistic assignment in 1962. Her article concerning birth control, titled The Moral Disarmament of Betty Coed, examined the dilemmas women faced when forced to choose between domestic family life and professional ambitions. The next year, Steinem spent 11 days working undercover as a Playboy Bunny to produce a famous two-part investigative piece detailing the workplace conditions endured by hostesses inside Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club. Constrained by tight outfits and high-heeled shoes, Steinem lost 10 pounds—half of which vanished during a single shift—prompting her supervisor to respond by tightening her costume by two inches. In the wake of the exposé’s publication, securing new writing assignments proved nearly impossible “because I had now become a Bunny – and it didn’t matter why”.
In 1968, Felker brought her on staff at New York magazine, where she first introduced the phrase “reproductive freedom” while covering a public abortion speakout in Greenwich Village. Having previously undergone an abortion procedure in London at age 22, Steinem recounted experiencing a profound realization during the gathering, citing that event as the true catalyst for her lifelong journey as an “active feminist”.
“I think the person who said: ‘Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament’ was right,” she remarked in a 2011 interview with the Observer. “Speaking for myself, I knew it was the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life. I wasn’t going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life, and therefore it felt positive.”
Steinem also acknowledged Black feminist leaders such as Florynce Kennedy, Evelyn Cunningham, Shirley Chisholm, and Fannie Lou Hamer for instructing her on the vital nature of direct activism. “It was like finding a family,” she observed regarding that era. “As wildly different as we may be, and we certainly were, women share hopes and a certain vision of the world, and a certain shit detector.”
This period marked the beginning of Steinem’s reputation for writing thought-provoking journalism, including pieces like If Men Could Menstruate, which was published in Ms., the publication she co-founded alongside Dorothy Pitman Hughes in 1971. The magazine’s debut cover showcased Wonder Woman; because the superheroine had recently surrendered her superpowers to remain with a romantic partner, the featured article argued that DC Comics ought to reinstate her powers and realign the character with feminist values. Steinem penned additional notable essays such as What It Would Be Like If Women Win in Time, along with After Black Power, Women’s Liberation, the 1969 New York magazine essay that established her prominent standing as a feminist leader.
Despite experiencing severe anxiety regarding public speaking and interpersonal confrontation, Steinem possessed sharp media instincts and leveraged the influence afforded by her privilege as an educated white woman to advocate for marginalized communities, including Black people, ethnic minorities, and working-class citizens. She contended in 1971 that gender and race are intrinsically linked “because they are easy, and visible differences have been the primary ways of organising human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour on which this system still depends.” In 2017, she noted: “It doesn’t surprise me that the most virulent anti-abortion measures are coming from Alabama and other southern states because racism and sexism are always intertwined. You can’t perpetuate racism without controlling women and reproduction.”
Throughout her career, Steinem remained a subject of debate. Certain feminists argued that her prominence as a movement spokesperson was driven by mainstream media preferring a young, conventionally attractive white woman over other advocates; addressing this in her 2015 memoir My Life on the Road, Steinem reflected that the “idea that whatever I had accomplished was all about looks would remain a biased and hurtful accusation even into my old age”.
She faced decades of public criticism for an op-ed published in 1998 in the New York Times, where she defended President Bill Clinton amid accusations of sexual misconduct. “He is not guilty of sexual harassment,” she stated, characterizing the encounter instead as “a gross, dumb, and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life”. Reflecting on the piece in 2017, Steinem stated: “We have to believe women. I wouldn’t write the same thing now because there’s probably more known about other women now.” Furthermore, an essay she authored in 1977 led some to view her as dismissive of transgender rights, a stance she addressed and clarified in 2013: “I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned.”
Steinem received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 1986, followed by a diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic nerve pain condition, in 1994. Although she had long expressed skepticism toward the institution of marriage, she wed environmental campaigner David Bale in 2000 and maintained a close bond with her stepson, actor Christian Bale, following his father’s death in 2003.
An outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, Steinem strongly opposed Donald Trump, serving as co-chair and delivering an address at the Women’s March on Washington immediately following Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. “The only good news of Trump is that the galvanising of activism is like nothing I have ever seen in my life,” she commented to the Guardian later that year. “A thousand times more even than the Vietnam war, and how important that was – or of any other thing I’ve ever seen.”
During a 2011 interview with the Observer, she expressed: “I hope to live to 100. There is so much to do.”
Originally published at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/03/gloria-steinem-groundbreaking-feminist-campaigner-dies-aged-92.
