All of the feminist icons are leaving us! We’ve now lost Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem back-to-back. Steinem passed away this week in New York City at the age of 92. Steinem was a writer, activist, feminist and all-around badass. She was still extremely active in her final years, regularly popping up at premieres and events, and hanging out with the younger generation of feminists.
Gloria Steinem, the feminist crusader who, in galvanizing the modern women’s movement, helped millions of women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at home, at work and in society at large, died on Wednesday in New York City. She was 92.
Her death was announced in a post on social media, which did not give a cause. It said Ms. Steinem had died peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones.
Calling herself “an entrepreneur of social change,” Ms. Steinem helped usher in sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom. For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.
She was an unlikely revolutionary. Growing up a transient in the Midwest, she was 10 when her parents divorced and she was left to mother her mentally anguished mother — a formative experience that reverberated throughout her life. She had scant formal education until sixth grade; her big dream, as a budding tap dancer, was to become a Rockette. But she read voraciously, graduated from college with honors and believed fiercely that women should be able to live whatever life they chose.
Her own feminist awakening didn’t come until her mid-30s, when, as a journalist in 1969, she attended a “speak out” of women discussing their illegal abortions. Charismatic, articulate, media savvy, deeply empathetic and a workaholic, she evolved into a political and cultural force.
She led protests and consciousness-raising sessions, wrote essays and delivered speeches, delved into political organizing, helped establish rape crisis centers and shelters for battered women, founded numerous groups that promoted women and had the Midas touch when it came to raising money for their causes.
One of the first iconic things Steinem did was back when she was just a baby-journalist and she went undercover at the Playboy Club. Her piece, “A Bunny’s Tale,” became a HUGE deal and it was even made into a TV movie. Hugh Hefner made changes to the clubs and suddenly, there was a larger discourse about how women employees are treated overall. That was the start of everything for Steinem and she absolutely changed this country. She will be missed.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images and Avalon.red.
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- , New York, NY – 20200229- HISTORYTalks Leadership and Legacy Event at Carnegie Hall. -PICTURED: Gloria Steinem -PHOTO by: Media Punch/INSTARimages.com This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded Featuring: Gloria Steinem Where: New York, New York, United States When: 29 Feb 2020 Credit: Media Punch/INSTARimages.com
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- New York, NY – 9/20/04 – New York Premiere of director Brad Anderson’s fifth feature “The Machinist”, starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Christian Bale is set to star as the new Batman in 2005 -PICTURED: Gloria Steinem -PHOTO by: Alex Oliveira/startraksphoto.com -AO102129 Featuring: Gloria Steinem Where: New York, New York, United States When: 20 Sep 2004 Credit: Alex Oliveira/startraksphoto.com
Thank you, Gloria! This is all know to say. The debt we owe her is too large to really speak to concisely. Rest in power!
She certainly made my generation’s life so much better… even though we now have to get back to fighting mode to retrieve some of the gains we’ve lost to the toxic misogynist billionaires & their puppet Felon!
She was a hero.
Thank you, Gloria. Rest in power
Oh my. This has been a tough few days for celebrity deaths. Gloria Steinem was a formidable lady, a true trailblazer, considerate and kind, and will definitely be missed.
My own mother, independent and forthright to the end, formidable in her own way, passed away on Friday, and I have been reflecting on whether all these fine people have ended up in the same “hall of waiting” together. The tales they could swap!
So sorry for your loss, Magdalena.
May your mother’s memory be a blessing.
So sorry to hear about your loss, Magdalena xx
May both their memories be a blessing, Magdelena. And the rest of usas well. The powerful women in our lives are gifts.
So very sorry for your loss
So very sorry, Magdalena. Losing one’s mother is gutting.
I am so very sorry for the loss of your sweet mother. Sending you love.
Thank you so much for your kind words everyone. Everything has been a blur (I muted my phone to block out a fair bit at the weekend), lots of lows and tears and some smiles, and I have managed to persuade my sister to slow down even for a day, just to think and reflect, as she was just suddenly going full speed ahead in every direction and almost certainly heading for a crash (it’s just the two of us now, our father passed away several years ago). We’ve finally remembered to eat and try to get some sleep.
I have been distracting myself in between moments of reflection, and our dear friends and wider family members are rallying around in their own way. We can only but take things one day at a time, and cherish the memories with each passing day.
Hugs @Magdelena. Hoping she met up with my mom in a room. My Mom passed in 2015. It’s still not easy.
Well, this is sad news to wake up to. Gloria Steinem is right up there with Betty Friedan who wrote The Feminine Mystique. They along with Flo Kennedy, Bella Abzug and others reignited feminism in the nineteen sixties and brought many of the reforms we now take for granted. A married woman can now apply for a credit card in her own name without her husband’s permission thanks to their work. And Steinem, in particular, never stopped. She opposed MAGA with every fiber of her being. She understood intersectional strategy better than anyone of her generation. To say she will be missed is an understatement. She leaves a huge hole right when she is most needed. May she rest in power.
She also singlehandedly killed the widespread notion that all feminists were homely, resentful old maids who could never attract male attention. The streak in her hair was her ode to Holly Golightly.
An American hero.
Rest In Power
She did that!
I can only think this morning about all the conservative women who reject feminism, refer to progressives as “libtards” and take for granted that they can have bank accounts, own property, rent places to live, expect a workplace that is harassment free and all fundamental-ass rights and respect that Gloria fought for.
“I mean, I believe women should be paid the same and everything, but I’m not a feminist.” Imma slap anyone who says this to me today.
You did the most, you left it all on the field: do not rest in power. Rest in peace. You fought long enough.
THIS! As soon as we were able to have our own bank accounts, my Mom had my sister and I lined up to get them, so we could deposit our meager babysitting funds. I, Gen X, grew up secure in all the rights Gloria and her cohorts worked so hard to secure. Rights that are being quickly removed and minimized. With this loss, another strong voice has been silenced and I, like you, will not tolerate the lazy stupidity of those willfully unaware of all women have to lose.
Amen to this. Gloria Steinem fought so hard for so many things that people take for granted. Only last week the mother of a friend of mine was describing how the manager of her longstanding bank asked her where her husband was when she went to sign the papers to open a business account for her IT company – in the early nineties(!) – even though he could see that she had banked with them for many years and was in excellent standing financially.
My mother took me to open my first bank account when I was 10 years old, and did the same for my sister. She always encouraged us to be financially aware and independent, and that meant always having our own accounts, regardless of circumstances later in life. She was married to my father for decades, but still kept a personal account separate and apart from their joint account.
I saw her speak to a huge crowd in a hotel ballroom in Denver in the 80s. Her talk was just electrifying. I remember that one of her former boyfriends was there too, as he lived in Denver. She introduced him to the audience, and during her speech, he was looking at her with so much admiration and respect. It made a huge impression on me.
I’m absolutely gutted at this news. I saw her speak just a few weeks ago in NYC and while very frail, she was still sharp and funny while talking about her life. What a loss.
💔 May her memory be a blessing. 💔
I literally gasped and almost started crying when I saw this post. No words for the moment
Rest in Power, Gloria.
Words fail me today. In such a short period of time, we’ve lost two legendary voices of empowerment and equality.
So grateful to you Gloria for all that you did to shine a light on this injustices and violence against women and really, all people. You did it with grace, humor and love to empower the voiceless.
One of my two pioneering feminist heroes of all time gone. Rest in power Gloria.
Stay safe and protected Angela Davis.
RIP magnificent Gloria, we can never thank you enough, we will never take for granted to rights you & others fought so hard for, and we will continue the fight, which has been amping up so alarmingly.
A true Shero.
Not only did her contributions to MS magazine change the way women in society are perceived but her writings also changed the way women saw and continue to see themselves.
I will always remember her for the iconic photos she did with Dorothy Pitman Hughes and DPH for steering GS towards political activism.
Thank you Gloria for beaming some of your light into this dark place.
May she rest peacefully. She was undoubtedly a pioneer, but her legacy is complicated by a lack of intersectionality. She did some good and she did some harm.
She wasn’t perfect, but here’s what civil rights advocate Kimberle Crenshaw wrote today on Instagram of Steinem: “I saw her stand up for Black women and girls even when others stood down. Her advocacy for us made intersectionality possible.”
Steinem was willing to evolve and she became, in her later years, a champion of trans women. “It seems to me to be all the same struggle,” she said. “We invented the idea of gender. It doesn’t exist. The old languages — Cherokee, Bengali, the oldest African languages — do not have he or she. They don’t even have gendered pronouns. We’re all trying to achieve a world where you are a unique individual and a human being.”
Well said. She can be celebrated for the good but there was opportunity to do better.
(“Great feminist icon”) — I would nevertheless strongly qualify this portrayal. Gloria Steinem represents a particular form of American liberal feminism, which achieved important advances for women, but also largely left aside the question of class and the relationship between women’s liberation, capitalism, and imperialism. Her anti-communist past and her ties to the CIA also deserve to be remembered when considering her political legacy. We can acknowledge the historical impact of her activism without turning Steinem into a universal and unquestionable feminist figure.
I was wondering if anyone would bring up the CIA stuff. She did some good, and consciously shut down things for being too revolutionary.
Thanks for this. Disappointed but not surprised that no one else brought this up. She very deliberately worked to keep class analysis out of feminist movements. She also opposed the UN declaration that defined Zionism as a form of racism, defended Bill Clinton against accusations of sexual assault, and mocked the working class momentum behind Bernie Sanders running for president in 2016. She is emblematic of a bourgeoisie white feminism that myself and many others do not identify with.
So she was not a Marxist is what you’re saying. You can disagree with her on that but it was her right not to be a Marxist. She did not see the oppression of women as a class struggle because it exists across classes. She was intersectional and never focused on class as the ultimate oppression in American society. It doesn’t make her a “bad” activist. Her opinion was different from yours obviously.
Brassy Rebel : Precisely. I think you are missing the heart of my criticism.
The issue is not that Steinem “had the right not to be a Marxist.” Of course she did. The question is what kind of feminism she helped promote and what its political limitations are.
From a Marxist and socialist feminist perspective, the emancipation of women cannot be separated from economic and class relations. Women do not constitute a homogeneous class with the same material interests everywhere. A working-class woman, a poor woman, an immigrant or racialized woman, and a woman from a privileged class may all experience sexism, but they do not experience it under the same conditions or with the same economic interests.
This is precisely what concerns me about liberal feminism: it tends to define women’s emancipation primarily in terms of access to rights, careers, institutions, and positions of power within the existing capitalist system. But if a few women manage to reach the top of that hierarchy while millions of others continue to face low wages, precarity, domestic labor, and economic dependence, can we really speak of emancipation having been achieved?
For socialist feminism, the question is therefore not simply: “How many women are represented among those in positions of power?” It is also: “Who owns what, who works, who benefits from other people’s labor, and under what conditions do women produce and reproduce society?”
This is where the question of class becomes unavoidable. And this does not mean artificially setting “women” against “men,” nor does it mean denying patriarchy. It means understanding that patriarchy and capitalism can intersect and that the exploitation of women’s labor—both paid and unpaid—is also part of the functioning of capitalist society.
That is precisely my criticism of Steinem: her feminism contributed to making the integration of women into the existing system a major horizon of emancipation, rather than raising the question of transforming that system itself.
One can fully acknowledge the advances to which she contributed while still arguing that her feminism represents a form of emancipation compatible with capitalism. Empowering a handful of women to take their place at the top of a society founded on exploitation is not, in my view, the same thing as liberating women as a whole from that exploitation.
And that is why I reject presenting Steinem as a “great feminist icon” without specifying what kind of feminism we are talking about. This is not about denying her the right to hold her views. It is about exercising an equally legitimate right: the right to politically critique her legacy.
Yes, Steinem undoubtedly helped advance the emancipation of many Western women, according to her own definition of what emancipation meant. But this is precisely where I believe her feminism has important limitations. It largely centered the experiences and aspirations of Western women, while marginalizing or underestimating the struggles and material conditions of women in the Global South—whether in Latin America, Africa, or Asia.
The emancipation of women cannot be understood solely through the lens of Western liberal feminism. Women in the Global South have historically confronted not only patriarchy, but also colonialism, imperialism, economic dependency, poverty, racial hierarchies, and forms of exploitation linked to the global capitalist system. Their struggles cannot simply be treated as secondary or folded into a universal feminist narrative shaped primarily by the experiences of relatively privileged Western women.
For me, this is another fundamental limitation of Steinem’s legacy: she helped open doors for some women within Western societies, but that should not automatically be equated with the emancipation of women as a whole. There is a profound difference between achieving greater equality for women within the existing social order and confronting the global economic and political structures that continue to shape the lives of millions of women outside the West.
@Line: I would love to have the time and space to properly debate this subject with you but I don’t. Thank you for all the points you make about the limitations of Western feminism. But I believe that Marxism and socialism have those same limitations. The perfect, fully egalitarian socio-economic system has yet to be invented. However, I believe, and Steinem seemed to also believe, that the best system and the most upwardly mobile system for everyone is regulated capitalism with a strong social safety net. Think of the social democracies of the Scandinavian countries. Or even the system we had in the US in the late 20th and early 21st century. What we have now in the US is no longer even capitalism with Trump moving us toward control of the economy by political leadership. That is crony capitalism or state capture. And that resembles socialism more than capitalism. In any case, it is destroying a successful economy which can work everywhere with the proper guardrails and a robust safety net given the innate problem of winners and losers in any economy. But it does strike me as sort of nit picking to critique Gloria Steinem on her accomplishments because you think they didn’t all translate to the Global South. She was an American working within the existing system and made it better for all American women. And some of those improvements certainly did translate to women throughout the world. That’s enough for most of us to honor her.
Brassy Rebel : I understand your position better now, and I think we have finally reached the real point of disagreement: you essentially defend a social-democratic conception of capitalism, whereas my criticism comes from a Marxist and socialist perspective.
I am not claiming that Marxism or socialism have invented a “perfect system.” That is not my argument at all. The question is rather whether the inequalities you describe as the inevitable presence of “winners and losers” are truly an unavoidable feature of every economic system, or whether they are partly produced by historically determined social and economic relations.
The Scandinavian countries demonstrate that a highly regulated form of capitalism can significantly reduce inequality and improve living conditions. I do not dispute that at all. But this does not abolish class relations, the exploitation of labor, or the power relations associated with the ownership of capital. Social democracy can make capitalism much more livable without actually transcending capitalism.
This is precisely where my criticism of Steinem lies. You consider her achievements sufficient because they improved the situation of many American women. I am questioning the model of emancipation that those achievements represent. Enabling women to access the same institutions, careers, and positions of power as men is obviously an important step forward. But that does not necessarily mean that working-class women have been liberated from the economic relations that exploit them.
And I do not think it is “petty” to raise the question of the Global South. I am not blaming an American woman for failing to solve the problems faced by women in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. I am saying something else: when Steinem is presented as a “great feminist icon” or as a representative of women’s emancipation in general, it is legitimate to ask what conception of emancipation she represents and which experiences that conception leaves in the shadows.
A middle-class American woman who gains greater professional independence may indeed benefit from a major advancement. But what about the immigrant domestic worker who enables her to pursue that career while taking care of household chores and childcare? What about the woman working in a textile factory in Asia or Latin America, integrated into global production chains? Their emancipation cannot be measured solely by the extent to which Western women gain access to professions and institutions.
This is also why I reject the idea that gender equality alone is sufficient to define emancipation. If a woman becomes the CEO of a corporation and employs thousands of precarious female workers, have we necessarily achieved a feminist victory for those workers? Gender equality at the top of the hierarchy does not automatically mean social equality at its base.
Finally, I do not agree that crony capitalism is “more like socialism than capitalism.” Capitalism can perfectly well function with a highly interventionist state. The fundamental question remains one of ownership and control of the means of production. An economy in which businesses remain predominantly privately owned, and in which wage labor and capital accumulation remain central, is still a capitalist economy, even when the state intervenes extensively.
Ultimately, I think our disagreement is fairly straightforward: you believe that a properly regulated capitalism provides the best possible framework for emancipation. I believe that regulating capitalism can bring real and necessary improvements, but that this should not be confused with emancipation itself.
And that is precisely why I can acknowledge Gloria Steinem’s achievements while refusing to regard her as a universal feminist icon. I am not denying her contributions; I am questioning the conception of emancipation that those contributions represent.
I am not stopping anyone from celebrating Gloria Steinem’s life and achievements. But when we celebrate a historical figure, we should not focus only on the positive while ignoring their contradictions, limitations, and controversial political positions. Otherwise, we risk turning history into a form of personality cult.
Recognizing someone’s contributions does not mean suspending critical judgment. We can acknowledge their achievements while also examining their contradictions and limitations. That is how we have meaningful debates and learn from history to move the causes we defend forward.
Some Americans are now Democratic Socialists. I consider myself a social democrat. That is more in line with the healthy capitalism that I support. And I do disagree with the implication that only capitalist societies promote imperialism. I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the old Soviet Union but it remains the best example of a Marxist system we have. And it was very imperialist. Ask anyone who grew up in eastern Europe in those days, not to mention it’s spheres of influence in Africa and Latin America. Even today, Vladimir Putin, who came out of the KGB, practices Soviet style imperialism and regional domination. But the old Soviet Union collapsed on its own because it could not provide it’s citizens and those of its colonies with even minimal standards of living. I fear that’s where we are headed here in the States since Trump, a Putin acolyte, is destroying the vibrant, healthy economy we had. Not perfect but better than all others.
In reply to your final comment, I’m in favor of Utopia too, but I don’t see any system getting us there anytime soon or maybe even ever. Humans are flawed, after all, which makes the perfect system a dream rather than a plausible reality. If you have an example of an actual nation where all the wonders you describe actually exist, I would love to hear it! But I must sign off for the night. Thank you for the stimulating, thoughtful and civil discussion. Hope to continue to hear from you on this site. 🙂
“The Soviet Union was a historical form of Marxism-Leninism, but equating the Soviet model with Marxism as a whole is an oversimplification.”
I’m fundamentally opposed to capitalism, and I cannot accept the idea that it is the only viable model simply because no alternative has yet created a perfect society.
Brassy Rebel : From a Marxist perspective, capitalism is based on a class system in which workers create wealth while capital owners appropriate much of the value generated by their labor. Capitalism also played a major role in the development and expansion of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and the exploitation and dispossession of entire populations.Today, we see an extraordinary concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, while millions remain poor or economically insecure. The enormous fortunes of people such as Elon Musk exist alongside extreme poverty around the world.
So I think we probably won’t agree on this fundamental point, and that’s perfectly okay. I genuinely appreciate the respectful and stimulating discussion we’ve had. I think these disagreements are precisely what makes a debate worthwhile. 🙂
When I think of Gloria Steinem I think of the phrase “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” (Google says she didn’t write it herself although she did make it well known.)
Her essay “In Praise of Women’s Bodies” was my “coming in” party. I came to live more fully inside my body than ever before after reading her essay. It allowed me to stop comparing myself to other women (especially to my sister, whom my mother held over me as perfect and why wasn’t I more like her?) and to trust and live in the body I have. I will always bless her for that essay alone. In truth, her entire writing career has been part of my education from my first reading her work in her essay about working as a Playboy Bunny. My step-dad & bio-mum threw a party every year. One year, when I was still a young girl, a woman who had posed as a Playboy bunny was there with a famous racing car driver (step-dad was the starter for Formula 1 races for 13 years so we knew all the drivers back then). As young as I was, I remember the flush of embarrassment I felt as step-dad had plastered one wall with lots of bunny pictures, and hers was one. We girls were put to work serving drinks and cleaning up, and I remember a group of men gawking at the pictures then talking about her behind her back. I still remember the flush of shame, anger and embarrassment I felt in that moment. Gloria’s essays put much into perspective for me as a woman 20 years her junior. I read Ms magazine avidly for years solely for her work (of course, I got a lot out of it in it’s entirety, but it was her writings I paid for when I bought the magazine). All that being said, in 1985 (1985!!!) when my guy died before our baby was 2, I was denied a mortgage as a woman alone with a child, even though I had secure employment in my field of excellence. Instead, I had the honour of paying a man’s (my landlord) mortgage for 16 years as I raised my boy. As I type this, I feel a familiar flush of anger about how those rules held me back from creating any wealth for myself, and will now have to work till I die in the trenches. Gloria lifted us all up, and still the patriarchal society we live in kept pounding us down into the shape and size they demanded of women. And they are still demanding women fit a specific mould. She blessed us with her wit, her intelligence and her passion. All the ground we fought for, the long nights of letter writing our elected representative, the marches “Women Unite, Take Back the Night”, “Our Bodies, Our Selves”, “Arms are for Hugging” there were so many battles fought. We would celebrate even partial victories as a step in the right direction. To see where we are now, in 2026 is gut-wrenching. May the generations coming after us have as fierce a warrior on the patriarchal battlefield. Thank you, Ms Steinem, for sharing you passion for fairness, for equality with us all. Rest in Peace, you’ve earned it! XOXO
Random fact about Gloria Steinem: Christian Bale was her stepson.
Great, great woman. A pioneer and icon. Read her Ms. Magazine as a young person. She and the feminist movement influenced so many women. Rest in peace and power.
I heard her speak a few years ago and she was absolutely brilliant. I read her books, especially her collection of essays, “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions,” and they are fantastic. I think I’ve read a few of her essays at least a dozen times each.
She made the world better for women and she earned her rest.
Go on and take your rest now, Ms G. If ever anyone of us earned that eternal rest, its you. You did your part, now its all up to the rest of us to do ours.
Rest in Peace.
What an incredible woman. Thank you, Gloria!
I’m going to have to watch Ms. America this weekend in her honor. Rose Byrne played her so wonderfully and I learned so much about the sexual revolution.
All of the good people are dying off. Truly was a champion of women and very deserving of her flowers. An interesting full life that changed our world for the better. These last years have been so frustrating and horrific seeing the gains and rights we women have attained being revoked and chipped away at. The fight continues.
I minored in Women’s Studies at my university because of Gloria, Betty, Bella, Simone, Kate Millet and so many other dedicated and passionate supporters of women. We need feminism right now in our endangered country.
Rest in peace dear Gloria, you have fought a long and tedious fight that has made the world a better place 🙏🤍🕊️