Gloria Steinem, the journalist and longtime feminist activist who helped found Ms. Magazine and became one of the most recognizable figures of the modern women’s movement, died Wednesday at her home in New York City at age 92.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Gloria Steinem, whose decades as a journalist, author and feminist activist made her one of the most prominent figures in the American women’s movement, died Wednesday at age 92.
Her death was announced through social media accounts associated with her foundation, which said Steinem “passed away peacefully” at her home in New York City while “surrounded by many who loved her.”
“Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” the foundation said in its tribute, according to the Associated Press.
“Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor,” the statement continued.
Steinem spent much of her public life at the intersection of journalism and feminist political activism, eventually becoming a nationally recognized advocate for the women’s movement during a period of sweeping social and political change.
She was a co-founder of Ms. Magazine and a leader of the Women’s Action Alliance, organizations that helped place feminist issues more prominently into American politics, media and culture.
Long before she became internationally associated with the movement, however, Steinem gained attention through investigative journalism.
One of the assignments that helped establish her public profile involved going undercover inside Hugh Hefner’s Playboy organization. Steinem later said she regretted the assignment, according to the AP.
Her reporting experience was eventually dramatized in a 1985 television movie starring Kirstie Alley.
Steinem’s influence expanded considerably by the end of the 1960s.
In 1968, she helped establish New York magazine and used the publication as a platform for writing about politics, culture and the changing role of women in American society.
Her essay “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” helped establish her as a leading feminist voice as political movements over race, gender and civil rights transformed the national debate.
That visibility would follow Steinem for the rest of her life.
Her prominence made her an unusually recognizable activist, but she also expressed frustration that coverage of her frequently emphasized her physical appearance instead of her arguments or accomplishments.
Even decades into her career, profiles continued describing her as beautiful or glamorous.
A 1992 Vanity Fair profile, for example, referred to her “spectacular racehorse legs,” an illustration of the kind of attention Steinem said could distract from the political and social ideas she was attempting to advance.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem built a career that stretched across journalism, advocacy and political organizing and made her a defining public figure within the feminist movement.
Her personal life also drew considerable public interest, particularly because she remained unmarried for most of her adulthood.
Steinem often explained that decision with a characteristic line: “I can’t mate in captivity.”
That changed when she was 66, when she married South African businessman and environmentalist David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale.
Humor remained a recurring theme in Steinem’s writing and public commentary.
She once described laughter as “the only free emotion — the only one that can’t be compelled.”
Steinem’s life ultimately spanned generations of American political and cultural change, from her emergence as a young journalist to her decades as an organizer and public advocate.
Through New York, Ms. Magazine, the Women’s Action Alliance and her wider activism, she became closely identified with the feminist movement and remained a visible participant in its debates well into later life.
Her foundation’s announcement emphasized a more personal quality behind that public career, remembering her not simply for her political advocacy or published work but for the attention she gave to people around her.
Steinem died at her New York City home surrounded by loved ones, closing a public life that extended for more than half a century and left her name permanently intertwined with the history of modern American feminism.
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