Gloria Steinem, the American journalist, author and activist who became one of the most recognizable and enduring faces of the feminist movement, has died at age 92, her foundation announced Thursday.
“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. It did not give a cause of death.
The announcement prompted an outpouring of tributes to Steinem, whose decades of activism helped reshape the fight for women’s rights in the United States and beyond.
Steinem “pushed open doors not just for herself, but for literally millions of women behind her,” said Hillary Clinton, the first woman to serve as US secretary of state and the first female presidential nominee of a major US political party.
Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker of the US House of Representatives, called Steinem “a fearless trailblazer who transformed the fight for equality in America and inspired generations of women to know their power.”
“She lit a torch many years ago. It is now our responsibility to keep it lifted into the future,” said tennis legend Billie Jean King, winner of the famed 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match and a longtime advocate for gender equality.
From journalism to activism
Before becoming a leading figure in the women’s rights movement, Steinem established herself as a journalist in the 1960s, exposing the inequalities faced by American women at a time when many needed their husbands’ approval to open a bank account.
She rose to prominence in 1963 with an undercover exposé of the pervasive sexism experienced by cocktail waitresses at New York’s Playboy Club.
But Steinem later said her political awakening came after a 1969 meeting at which women spoke openly about their experiences having abortions.
“It made some sense of my own experience. I had had an abortion and had never told anyone,” she later recalled in New York Magazine.
Steinem had undergone an abortion in London in 1957, when the procedure was still illegal in much of the world. The doctor who performed it asked her to make two promises: “First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”
She went on to become a central force in the feminist movement of the 1970s, co-founding Ms. magazine and the National Women’s Political Caucus and helping organize the first National Women’s Conference in Houston.
Wearing her trademark aviator glasses, Steinem became a fixture at conferences, marches and protests across the United States and around the world. She remained an outspoken advocate for women’s rights well into her later years.
When the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion that the ruling had established, Steinem warned: “Banning abortions does not stop the need for them. It just bans their safety.”
“Don’t agonize. Organize,” she urged.
After a lifetime of challenging injustice, she told AFP in 2019: “I think the role of older people like me is to have hope, because we remember when it was worse.”
Public scrutiny
Born in Ohio on March 25, 1934, Steinem spent much of her childhood on the road with her father, a traveling salesman.
Her parents divorced when she was 10, and she later helped care for her mother, who struggled with mental health problems.
As a prominent feminist, Steinem faced fierce scrutiny from across the political spectrum. Critics seized on her appearance, including her miniskirts and brief experience as a Playboy Bunny, in attempts to undermine her credibility.
Her decision to remain single and childless also became a frequent target.
At 66, Steinem married businessman David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale.
Asked why she had changed her position on marriage, she replied: “I didn’t change. Marriage changed.”
Bale died three years later from brain cancer at 62. Steinem herself underwent surgery for breast cancer in the 1980s.
A complicated legacy
Steinem also faced criticism from some younger activists, who viewed her as representing an outdated strain of feminism.
She was criticized for defending Bill Clinton in 1989, when the then-governor of Arkansas was accused of sexual harassment.
In 2016, as Hillary Clinton campaigned for president but struggled to win over younger women, Steinem suggested that young women were drawn to rival Bernie Sanders partly because of the support he received from young men.
“When you’re young, you’re thinking: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,’” she told talk show host Bill Maher. She later apologized for the remarks.
Steinem received numerous awards and honors during her lifetime, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 from President Barack Obama.
On Thursday, Obama remembered her as a “larger-than-life” figure who “helped awaken us to problems like domestic violence” and discriminatory hiring practices.
“Today, generations of women are walking a little taller and aiming a little higher because of what she fought for and achieved,” the former president wrote on X.
Supporters gathered outside Steinem’s Manhattan apartment to pay their respects.
“I’m just feeling very inspired and grateful for the life that she led,” said Makenna Lorange, 31, who was visiting from Boston.
“We’ve lost a little bit of light in the world.”
AFP
