Trailblazing Activist Gloria Steinem Has Died at the Age of 92

Gloria Steinem, the trailblazing activist who dedicated her life to fighting for women’s rights, has died at the age of 92. Her passing was announced in a statement posted to her Instagram account.

The statement read in part, “Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her. Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end.” No cause of death was given.

Though Steinem was also a hard-hitting journalist, her activism is what turned her into a household name. She began challenging gender stereotypes in the 1960s, when women were still largely limited to domestic roles, and continued to do so throughout her life, inspiring generations of women who came after her.

Steinem’s Journalism Background Aided in Her Activism

Born in 1934, Steinem graduated college in 1956 with a degree in government studies. After graduating, she spent two years in India on a fellowship where she wrote for Indian publications and worked with people organizing against caste violence.

She later went on to work in newsrooms in the 1960s, at a time when women were mostly relegated to covering topics such as celebrities, cooking, and makeup. Still, she didn’t let that stop her from her goal of working in investigative journalism, and in 1963, she wrote an exposé that garnered her national attention.

For it, she went undercover at one of Hugh Hefner’s clubs and challenged Hefner’s claims that Playboy was a sexual revolution beneficial to all by exposing the low wages and sexism that cocktail waitresses faced. She followed that up by becoming a writer and founding editor of New York magazine, then eventually launched her own magazine, Ms.

Ms. addressed topics never before seen in women’s magazines (and ones that were considered taboo), including lesbianism, gender roles, abortion, and domestic abuse. A cover story from 1977 about sexual harassment ended up becoming the basis of the hit Dolly Parton movie 9 to 5.

Steinem’s Activism and Political Organization Influenced Society

Steinem helped create the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, an organization that recruited and trained women to be in politics. According to NPR, when the organization was formed, only seven women were city mayors, 15 had been elected to Congress, and 363 women were state legislators. Today, 428 women have become city mayors, 150 have been elected to Congress, and 2,476 have become state legislators.

She also worked tirelessly on the issues that matter most to her, particularly reproductive freedom. Even when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, Steinem was confident that her and others’ work on this legislative issue wasn’t in vain. She reportedly explained, “Too often we think the tree grows from the top, from Congress. Trees grow from the bottom,” indicating that the work everyday people do has more of an impact than the work done in Congress.

Her work will continue to be remembered by many in the future. As then-President Barack Obama said when he gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 for her committed activism, “Because of her work, across America and around the world, more women are afforded the respect and opportunities that they deserve. She also changed how women thought about themselves.”

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