Key Points
- Gloria Steinem was a journalist, author and organizer whose work helped bring the modern women’s movement into mainstream American politics and media.
- Steinem also co-founded or helped establish organizations including the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, Voters for Choice and the Women’s Media Center.
- President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Gloria Steinem, the journalist and author whose reporting, essays and magazine work helped bring the modern women’s movement into the American mainstream, died Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 92.
Her death was announced by her foundation in a social media post. A cause was not disclosed.
Steinem became one of the country’s best-known feminist organizers, but much of her influence came through journalism. She began her career as a freelance writer in New York in 1960, contributing to publications including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Family Circle, Life, Glamour and New York.
At the time, women writers were often assigned celebrity profiles, fashion stories and service journalism rather than politics or investigative reporting. Steinem later built a career around challenging those limits, using magazine journalism to examine work, sex, power, reproductive rights and the ways women were represented in media and public life.
Her first major breakthrough came in 1963, when she went undercover as a waitress at the Playboy Club in New York for Show magazine. The resulting two-part article, “A Bunny’s Tale,” detailed low pay, strict appearance rules and sexualized working conditions inside the club. The story brought Steinem national attention and became one of the best-known magazine investigations of its era.
In 1968, Steinem helped found New York magazine, where she wrote the monthly political column “The City Politic.” A year later, after reporting on women speaking publicly about illegal abortions, she wrote “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation,” an essay that helped establish her as a leading voice in second-wave feminism.
Her most significant media venture came in 1971, when she helped create “Ms.” magazine with a group of feminist journalists and editors. The publication was designed as an alternative to traditional women’s magazines, which often focused on homemaking, beauty and marriage.
“Ms.” covered abortion, domestic violence, equal pay, sexual harassment, maternity leave, gender roles and women in politics. Its first stand-alone issue, published in 1972, sold 300,000 copies in eight days. The magazine became a national platform for feminist reporting and commentary, publishing writers including Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison and Vivian Gornick.
Steinem remained closely tied to “Ms.” for decades as the magazine navigated ownership changes and financial pressure. She later helped assemble investors to keep the publication alive before it was taken over by the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Beyond journalism, Steinem co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus with Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm and others in 1971. She also helped establish or support the Ms. Foundation for Women, Voters for Choice, the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Women’s Media Center.
Steinem wrote nearly a dozen nonfiction books, including “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions,” “Marilyn: Norma Jean,” “Revolution From Within” and “My Life on the Road.” Her final book, “An Unexpected Life,” is scheduled for publication later this month.
President Barack Obama awarded Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. She continued writing, lecturing and speaking on women’s rights, reproductive freedom and political representation into her 90s.
