Iconoclast feminist Gloria Steinem dies aged 92

Posted Thu 3 Sep 2026 at 8:30pmThu 3 Sep 2026 at 8:30pmThu 3 Sep 2026 at 8:30pm, updated Thu 3 Sep 2026 at 9:05pmThu 3 Sep 2026 at 9:05pmThu 3 Sep 2026 at 9:05pm

In short:

Gloria Steinem, the author and activist who became one of the most visible voices of the US women’s movement, has died aged 92. 

She began her career as a journalist, notably one who reported, in 1963, on degrading conditions in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire, before moving into activism. 

Steinem continued advocacy into her 80s, speaking out on issues of importance to her, including genital mutilation. 

Gloria Steinem, the author and activist who became one of the most visible voices of the US women’s movement and a fierce feminist, has died aged 92.

With her trademark streaked hair parted down the middle and large aviator glasses, Steinem, a co-founder of Ms. Magazine, was a hugely recognisable presence wherever she went.

And she went everywhere; much of her life as an advocate was spent on the road, speaking at college campuses and community centres, at rallies and marches.

She died Wednesday, local time, at her home in New York City, according to her and her foundation’s social media pages.

She began her career as a journalist, notably one who reported, in 1963, on degrading conditions in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire, an undercover assignment she came to regret.

She credits a meeting six years later, where women spoke out boldly in favour of abortion rights, with changing her career path.

“That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me,” Steinem, who had undergone a secret illegal abortion herself at age 22, told The AP in an email in 2022, reflecting on the reversal of Roe v Wade.

“Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy.“

Though she soon became a well-known activist, those who watched Steinem denounce discrimination for years likely never suspected that she first had to overcome a deep fear of public speaking.

She would have stuck to writing, she said, if only editors at the time had been willing to let her write about the women’s movement.

But they were not interested, she told the AP in 2015.

“So I ended up going out and speaking, which was my nightmare,” she said.

“I mean, I was terrified. But I’m grateful, even though I still get scared even now.”

Time hardly slowed Steinem down; well into her 80s, she was travelling the globe and speaking out on issues of importance to her.

These included everything from genital mutilation to Korean reconciliation, but it was equality for women that took precedence.

“Being a feminist means that you see the world as whole instead of half,”

she once said.

“It shouldn’t need a name, and one day it won’t.”

As the years went on, Steinem’s visibility endured.

At 83, she sat in the front row of her first fashion show, a guest of designer Prabal Gurung.

A few days after her 85th birthday, she was leading a women’s “talking circle” at an off-Broadway play celebrating her life, where one by one, women in the audience — many fighting tears — rose to thank her and tell their own stories of discrimination.

In 2020, her life was the subject of a feature film, The Glorias, based on her 2015 memoir My Life on the Road, and starring Julianne Moore.

And at 91, she collaborated on a picture book with Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee aimed at inspiring young people to change the world, published earlier this year.

The constant visibility came with a price; even in her later years, Steinem expressed frustration that despite her accomplishments, she was often described as beautiful or glamorous (a 1992 Vanity Fair profile even noted her “spectacular racehorse legs”).

It was a label she said unfairly detracted from her message.

“Nobody ever called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist, and that was in my mid-30s,” she told AP in a 2011 interview.

“It was clear that label was being assigned to me.

“The most hurtful part is that you work very hard, and people say it’s because of your looks.”

Of course, Steinem also had to deal with hostility. Sometimes it came from surprising places.

Appearing on Larry King’s talk show on CNN in 1990, she was visibly stunned when a female caller greeted her cheerfully, then told her to “rot in hell” because she had ruined “the beautiful American family.”

But by then, she noted, at least people were taking feminists seriously.

That was not the case in 1972 when she co-founded Ms. Magazine and many commentators — especially male — dismissed it as ridiculous, predicting an early demise. The magazine continues to this day, published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Among Steinem’s detractors was US president Richard Nixon, who was caught on an Oval Office tape ridiculing both her and the “Ms.” title.

The ridicule was mutual: in a 1972 National Press Club speech, Steinem called Nixon “the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon.”

It was just one example of Steinem’s trademark wit.

Before she married at 66, she often explained her single-hood by saying “I can’t mate in captivity.”

Laughter, she wrote, was “the only free emotion — the only one that can’t be compelled.”

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