Gloria Steinem

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Gloria Marie Steinem (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respelling; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.<ref name=cnn /><ref name=history>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=encyclopedia>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine and a co-founder of Ms. magazine.<ref name="encyclopedia" /> In 1969, Steinem published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation,"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which brought her national attention and positioned her as a feminist leader.<ref name="connecticutforum">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1971, she co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus which provides training and support for women who seek elected and appointed offices in government. Also in 1971, she co-founded the Women's Action Alliance which, until 1997, provided support to a network of feminist activists and worked to advance feminist causes and legislation. In the 1990s, Steinem helped establish Take Our Daughters to Work Day, an occasion for young girls to learn about future career opportunities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that "works to make women visible and powerful in the media."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:As of, Steinem was traveling internationally as an organizer and lecturer, and was a media spokeswoman on issues of equality.<ref name="Gloriasteinem.com">Template:Cite web.</ref> In 2015, Steinem, alongside two Nobel Peace Laureates (Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia<ref name="Nations"/>), Abigail Disney, and other prominent women peace activists, undertook a journey from the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang to South Korea, crossing the most heavily militarized zone in the world between the two Koreas.

Steinem speaking with supporters at the Women Together Arizona Summit at Carpenters Local Union in Phoenix, Arizona, September 2016.

Early life

Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio,<ref name=history /> the daughter of Ruth (née Nuneviller) and Leo Steinem. Her mother was Presbyterian, mostly of German (including Prussian) and some Scottish descent.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="roots">Finding Your Roots, February 23, 2016, PBS.</ref> Her father was Jewish, the son of immigrants from Württemberg, Germany, and Radziejów, Poland.<ref name="roots" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was chairwoman of the educational committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association, a delegate to the 1908 International Council of Women, and the first woman to be elected to the Toledo Board of Education, as well as a leader in the movement for vocational education.<ref name=jwa>Template:Cite web</ref> Pauline also rescued many members of her family from the Holocaust.<ref name=jwa />

The Steinems lived and traveled about in a trailer, from which Leo carried out his trade as a roaming antiques dealer.<ref name=jwa /> Before Gloria was born, her mother, Ruth, then age 34, had a "nervous breakdown" which left her an invalid, trapped in delusional fantasies that occasionally turned violent.<ref name="Steinem 1983 140–142">Template:Cite book</ref> She changed "from an energetic, fun-loving, book-loving" woman into "someone who was afraid to be alone, who could not hang on to reality long enough to hold a job, and who could rarely concentrate enough to read a book."<ref name="Steinem 1983 140–142" /> Ruth spent long periods in and out of sanatoriums for the mentally ill.<ref name="Steinem 1983 140–142" /> Steinem was ten years old when her parents separated in 1944.<ref name="Steinem 1983 140–142" /> Her father went to California to find work, while she and her mother continued to live together in Toledo.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Steinem 1983 140–142" />

While her parents divorced under the stress of her mother's illness, Steinem did not attribute it at all to male chauvinism on the father's part—she claims to have "understood and never blamed him for the breakup."<ref>Marcello, Patricia. Gloria Steinem: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. p. 20.</ref> Nevertheless, the impact of these events had a formative effect on her personality: while her father, a traveling salesman, had never provided much financial stability to the family, his exit aggravated their situation.<ref name="Marcello, Patricia 2004">Marcello, Patricia. Gloria Steinem: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.</ref> Steinem concluded that her mother's inability to hold on to a job was evidence of general hostility towards working women.<ref name="Marcello, Patricia 2004" /> She also concluded that the general apathy of doctors towards her mother emerged from a similar anti-woman animus.<ref name="Marcello, Patricia 2004" /> Years later, Steinem described her mother's experience as pivotal to her understanding of social injustices.<ref name="OutrageousActs">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp These perspectives convinced Steinem that women lacked social and political equality.<ref name="OutrageousActs" />

Steinem attended Waite High School in Toledo and Western High School in Washington, D.C., graduating from the latter while living with her older sister Susanne Steinem Patch.<ref name=Toledo>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She then attended Smith College,<ref name="BiographyCom">Template:Cite web</ref> an institution with which she continues to remain engaged, from which she received her A.B. magna cum laude and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.<ref name="Gloriasteinem.com" />

In 1957, Steinem had an abortion. The procedure was performed by Dr. John Sharpe, a British physician, when abortion was still illegal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Years later, Steinem dedicated her memoir My Life on the Road (2015)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> to him. She wrote, "Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India. Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, 'You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.'"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the late 1950s, Steinem spent two years in India as a Chester Bowles Asian Fellow.<ref name="CIA" /> She was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and would later model her campaign after Gandhi's independence movement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After returning to the United States, she served as director of the Independent Research Service, an organization funded in secret by a donor that turned out to be the CIA.<ref name="CIA">Template:Cite news</ref> She worked to send non-Communist American students to the 1959 World Youth Festival.<ref name="CIA" /> In 1960, she was hired by Warren Publishing as the first employee of Help! magazine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Journalism

Esquire magazine features editor Clay Felker gave freelance writer Steinem what she later called her first "serious assignment", regarding contraception; he didn't like her first draft and had her re-write the article.<ref name="la times">Template:Cite news</ref> Her resulting 1962 article about the way in which women are forced to choose between a career and marriage preceded Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique by one year.<ref name="la times" /><ref name="nytimes2006">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1963, while working on an article for Huntington Hartford's Show magazine, Steinem was employed as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The article, published in 1963 as "A Bunny's Tale", featured a photo of Steinem in Bunny uniform and detailed how women were treated at those clubs.<ref name="bunny">Template:Cite web</ref> Steinem has maintained that she is proud of the work she did publicizing the exploitative working conditions of the Bunnies and especially the sexual demands made of them, which skirted the edge of the law.<ref name="playboy article">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> For a brief period after the article was published, Steinem was unable to land other assignments; in her words, this was "because [she] had now become a Bunny—and it didn't matter why".<ref name="playboy article" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, after the article was published the owner of Playboy, Hugh Hefner, wrote a letter stating he would remove requirements for Bunnies to get gynecological exams and STD testing.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the interim, she conducted an interview with John Lennon for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1964.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1965, she wrote for NBC-TV's weekly satirical revue, That Was The Week That Was (TW3), contributing a regular segment entitled "Surrealism in Everyday Life".<ref name="Marcello2004">Template:Cite book</ref> Steinem eventually landed a job at Felker's newly founded New York magazine in 1968.<ref name="la times" />

In 1969, she covered an abortion speak-out for New York Magazine, which was held in a church basement in Greenwich Village, New York.<ref name="nymag1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="nymag2">Template:Cite web</ref> Steinem had had an abortion herself in London at the age of 22.<ref name="guardian1">Template:Cite news</ref> She felt what she called a "big click" at the speak-out, and later said she didn't "begin my life as an active feminist" until that day.<ref name="nymag2" /> As she recalled, "It [abortion] is supposed to make us a bad person. But I must say, I never felt that. I used to sit and try and figure out how old the child would be, trying to make myself feel guilty. But I never could! I think the person who said: 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament' was right. Speaking for myself, I knew it was the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life. I wasn't going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life, and therefore it felt positive. But still, I didn't tell anyone. Because I knew that out there it wasn't [positive]."<ref name="guardian1" /> She also said, "In later years, if I'm remembered at all it will be for inventing a phrase like 'reproductive freedom'  ... as a phrase it includes the freedom to have children or not to. So it makes it possible for us to make a coalition."<ref>Gilbert, Lynn & Moore, Gaylen, "Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times". Clarkson Potter, 1981. p. 166.</ref>

The first issue of Ms., released in 1972

In 1972, she co-founded the feminist magazine Ms. alongside founding editors Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mary Thom, Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, and Mary Peacock; it began as a special edition of New York, and Clay Felker funded the first issue.<ref name="la times" /> Its 300,000 test copies sold out nationwide in eight days.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=msmagazine>Template:Cite web</ref> Within weeks, Ms. had received 26,000 subscription orders and more than 20,000 reader letters.<ref name=msmagazine /> In 1974, Ms. collaborated with public television to produce the television program Woman Alive!, and Steinem was featured in the first episode in her role as co-founder of Ms. magazine.<ref name="Schlesinger">Woman Alive! Collection, 1974–1977: A Finding Aid. MC 421. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Accessed May 18, 2020.</ref> The magazine was sold to the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2001; Steinem remains on the masthead as one of six founding editors and serves on the advisory board.<ref name=msmagazine />

Also in 1972, Steinem became the first woman to speak at the National Press Club.<ref name=autogenerated1>Template:Cite news</ref>

Steinem spoke at the 1977 National Women's Conference among other speakers, including Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Cecilia Burciaga, Lenore Hershey, and Jean O'Leary.<ref>"1977 National Women's Conference: A Question of Choices", 1977-11-21, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting</ref>

In 1978, Steinem wrote a semi-satirical essay for Cosmopolitan titled "If Men Could Menstruate" in which she imagined a world where men menstruate instead of women. She concludes in the essay that in such a world, menstruation would become a badge of honor with men comparing their relative sufferings, rather than the source of shame that it had been for women.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

On March 22, 1998, Steinem published an op-ed in The New York Times ("Feminists and the Clinton Question") in which she claimed that Bill Clinton's alleged behavior did not constitute sexual harassment, although she did not actually challenge the accounts by his accusers.<ref name=clinton>Template:Cite news</ref> The op-ed was criticized by various writers, as in the Harvard Crimson<ref name=crimsom>Template:Cite news</ref> and in the Times itself.<ref name=enabling>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2017, Steinem, in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, stood by her 1998 New York Times op-ed, but also said: "I wouldn't write the same thing now."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Activism

Early activism (1968-1976)

In 1968, Steinem signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>"Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968 New York Post.</ref> The following year, her article "After Black Power, Women's Liberation"<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> brought her to national fame as a feminist leader.<ref name="connecticutforum" /> As such she campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its favor in 1970.<ref name="Donaldson2007">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That same year she published her essay on a utopia of gender equality, "What It Would Be Like If Women Win", in Time magazine.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

On July 10, 1971, Steinem was one of more than three hundred women who founded the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), including such notables as Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Myrlie Evers-Williams.<ref name="O'Brien2008">Template:Cite book</ref> As a co-convener of the Caucus, she delivered the speech "Address to the Women of America", stating in part: Template:Blockquote

In 1972, she ran as a delegate for Shirley Chisholm in New York, but lost.<ref name="Freeman">Template:Cite web</ref> In March of the following year, she addressed the first national conference of Stewardesses for Women's Rights, which she continued to support throughout its existence.<ref name="taminent">Template:Cite web</ref> Stewardesses for Women's Rights folded in the spring of 1976.<ref name="taminent" />

Steinem, who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics, was also a key player in the restoration of Wonder Woman's powers and traditional costume, which were restored in issue #204 (January–February 1973).<ref name=autogenerated2 /> Steinem, offended that the most famous female superhero had been depowered, had placed Wonder Woman (in costume) on the cover of the first issue of Ms. (1972)—Warner Communications, DC Comics' owner, was an investor—which also contained an appreciative essay about the character.<ref name=autogenerated2>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=autogenerated3>Template:Cite book</ref> In doing so, however, Steinem forced the firing of Samuel R. Delany who had taken over scripting duties with issue #202. Delany was supposed to write a six-issue story arc, which would culminate in a battle over an abortion clinic where Wonder Woman was to defend women trying to use their services, a critical feminist issue at the time. The story outlines and the work already done on the issues was scrapped, something that Steinem was not aware of and made no attempt to rectify.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1976, the first women-only Passover seder was held in Esther M. Broner's New York City apartment and led by Broner, with 13 women attending, including Steinem.<ref>This Week in History – E.M. Broner publishes "The Telling" | Jewish Women's Archive Template:Webarchive. Jwa.org (March 1, 1993). Retrieved on October 18, 2011.</ref>

Later activism (1980's-1990's)

In 1984, Steinem was arrested along with a number of members of Congress and civil rights activists for disorderly conduct outside the South African embassy while protesting against the South African apartheid system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At the outset of the Gulf War in 1991, Steinem, along with prominent feminists Robin Morgan and Kate Millett, publicly opposed a U.S. war in the Middle East and asserted the ostensible goal of "defending democracy" was a pretense.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That same year, she voiced strong support for Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings and predicted that one day Hill herself would sit on the Supreme Court.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1992, Steinem co-founded Choice USA, a non-profit organization that mobilizes and provides ongoing support to a younger generation that lobbies for reproductive choice.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The following year, she co-produced and narrated an Emmy Award-winning TV documentary for HBO about child abuse, called "Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories".<ref name="Gloriasteinem.com" /> Also in 1993, she and Rosilyn Heller co-produced an original TV movie for Lifetime, "Better Off Dead", which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty.<ref name="Gloriasteinem.com" />

Despite her influence in the feminist movement, Steinem also earned criticism from some feminists, who questioned whether she was committed to the movement or using it to promote her glamorous image.<ref name=ciaspeaks>Template:Cite web</ref> The Redstockings also singled her out for agreeing to cooperate with the CIA-backed Independent Research Service.<ref name=ciaspeaks /> It was also acknowledged that Steinem worked as a CIA agent when this operation was taking place.<ref name=chicagotribunereports /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

International activism on behalf of women

On June 1, 2013, Steinem was a presenter at the "Chime For Change: The Sound Of Change Live" Concert at Twickenham Stadium in London, England.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Later in 2014, UN Women began its commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, and as part of that campaign Steinem (and others) spoke at the Apollo Theater in New York City.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Chime For Change was funded by Gucci, focusing on using innovative approaches to raise funds and awareness especially regarding girls and women.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Steinem has stated, "I think the fact that I've become a symbol for the women's movement is somewhat accidental. A woman member of Congress, for example, might be identified as a member of Congress; it doesn't mean she's any less of a feminist but she's identified by her nearest male analog. Well, I don't have a male analog so the press has to identify me with the movement. I suppose I could be referred to as a journalist, but because Ms. is part of a movement and not just a typical magazine, I'm more likely to be identified with the movement. There's no other slot to put me in."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Contrary to popular belief, Steinem did not coin the feminist slogan "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle". Although she helped popularize it, the phrase is actually attributable to Irina Dunn.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When Time magazine published an article attributing the saying to Steinem, Steinem wrote a letter saying the phrase had been coined by Dunn.<ref>Letters, Time magazine, US edition, September 16, 2000, and Australian edition, October 9, 2000. Retrieved November 11, 2014.</ref> Another phrase sometimes wrongly attributed to Steinem is: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." Steinem herself attributed it to "an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston", whom she said she and Florynce Kennedy met.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On May 24, 2015, International Women's Day for Disarmament thirty women, including two Nobel Peace laureates from 15 countries, linked arms with 10,000 Korean women, stationing themselves on both sides of the DMZ to urge a formal end to the Korean War (1950–1953), the reunification of families divided during the war, and a peace building process with women in leadership positions to resolve seventy years of hostility following WWII.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was unusual for South Korea and North Korea to reach consensus on allowing peace activists to enter the tense border area, one of the world's most dangerous places, where hundreds of thousands of troops are stationed in a heavily mined zone that divides South Korea from nuclear North Korea.<ref name="Nations">Template:Cite web</ref> In addition to Steinem, participants in crossing the DMZ included organizer Christine Ahn from Hawaii; feminist Suzuyo Takazato from Okinawa; Amnesty International human rights lawyer Erika Guevara of Mexico; Liberian peace and reconciliation advocate Leymah Gbowee; Philippines lawmaker Liza Maza; Northern Ireland peace activist Mairead Maguire and Colonel Ann Wright, a retired officer who resigned from the U.S. military to protest the US invasion of Iraq.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Steinem was the honorary co-chairwoman of 2015 Women's Walk For Peace In Korea with Mairead Maguire, and in the weeks leading up to the walk Steinem told the press, "It's hard to imagine any more physical symbol of the insanity of dividing human beings."<ref name="Nations"/> The group's main goal is to advocate disarmament and seek Korea's reunification. It will be holding international peace symposiums both in Pyongyang and Seoul in which women from both North Korea and South Korea can share experiences and ideas of mobilizing women to stop the Korean crisis. It is especially believed that the role of women in this act would help and support the reunification of family members divided by the split prolonged for 70 years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She is also the chair of the advisory board of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization fighting sex trafficking and inter-generational prostitution in India, founded by Ruchira Gupta.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She has also written extensively on her travels, experiences with women and the Indian feminist movement with her colleague and friend, Ruchira Gupta.<ref name=Steinem2014>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 2014, Steinem and Gupta traveled through India to meet the country's young feminists, writers, and thought leaders.<ref name=Steinem2014/> A diary was kept documenting their travels, "Notes on A Tour of the Indian Women's Movement".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Since 2011, Steinem has been one co-conveners of the Frontline Women's Fund, a project of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute along with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and Jessica Neuwirth. The Frontline Women's Fund is a fund for women that strengthens frontline women's rights activists around the world by increasing their access to financial resources, political leaders, and media visibility. As of 2025, they support 28 partner organizations in 13 countries and manage four thematic funds including the Gloria Steinem Equality Fund to End Sex Trafficking with 13 grantees and the Efua Dorkenoo Fund to End Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) with 7 grantees.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Involvement in political campaigns

Steinem's involvement in presidential campaigns stretches back to her support of Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential campaign.<ref>Lazo, Caroine. Gloria Steinem: Feminist Extraordinaire. New York: Lerner Publications, 1998. p. 28.</ref>

1968 election

A proponent of civil rights and fierce critic of the Vietnam War, Steinem was initially drawn to Senator Eugene McCarthy because of his "admirable record" on those issues, but after meeting him and hearing him speak, she found him "cautious, uninspired, and dry".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp As the campaign progressed, Steinem became baffled at "personally vicious" attacks that McCarthy leveled against his primary opponent Robert F. Kennedy, even as "his real opponent, Hubert Humphrey, went free".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp

On a late-night radio show, Steinem garnered attention for declaring "George McGovern is the real Eugene McCarthy".<ref>Miroff, Bruce. The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party. University Press of Kansas, 2007. p. 206.</ref> In 1968, Steinem was chosen to pitch the arguments to McGovern as to why he should enter the presidential race that year; he agreed, and Steinem "consecutively or simultaneously served as pamphlet writer, advance 'man', fund raiser, lobbyist of delegates, errand runner, and press secretary".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp

McGovern lost the nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and Steinem later wrote of her astonishment at Hubert Humphrey's "refusal even to suggest to Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley that he control the rampaging police and the bloodshed in the streets".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp

1972 election

Steinem at the LBJ Library in 1975
At the Women's Action Alliance news conference of January 12, 1972

Steinem was reluctant to re-join the McGovern campaign, as although she had brought in McGovern's single largest campaign contributor in 1968, she "still had been treated like a frivolous pariah by much of McGovern's campaign staff". In April 1972, Steinem remarked that he "still doesn't understand the Women's Movement".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp

McGovern ultimately excised the abortion issue from the party's platform, and recent publications show McGovern was deeply conflicted on the issue.<ref>Miroff. p. 207.</ref> Steinem later wrote this description of the events:

Template:Blockquote

Gloria Steinem in 1977, photographed by Lynn Gilbert

However, Germaine Greer flatly contradicted Steinem's account, reporting, "Jacqui Ceballos called from the crowd to demand abortion rights on the Democratic platform, but Bella [Abzug] and Gloria stared glassily out into the room, thus killing the abortion rights platform", and asking "Why had Bella and Gloria not helped Jacqui to nail him on abortion? What reticence, what loserism had afflicted them?"<ref name="Greer_Harpers">Harper's Magazine October 1972.</ref> Steinem later recalled that the 1972 Convention was the only time Greer and Steinem ever met.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The cover of HarperTemplate:'s that month read, "Womanlike, they did not want to get tough with their man, and so, womanlike, they got screwed".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

2004 election

In the run-up to the 2004 election, Steinem voiced fierce criticism of the Bush administration, asserting, "There has never been an administration that has been more hostile to women's equality, to reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right, and has acted on that hostility", adding, "If he is elected in 2004, abortion will be criminalized in this country".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At a Planned Parenthood event in Boston, Steinem declared Bush "a danger to health and safety", citing his antagonism to the Clean Water Act, reproductive freedom, sex education, and AIDS relief.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

2008 election

Steinem was an active participant in the 2008 presidential campaign, and praised both the Democratic front-runners, commenting,

Template:Blockquote

Nevertheless, Steinem endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton, citing her broader experience, and saying that the nation was in such bad shape it might require two terms of Clinton and two of Obama to fix it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

She also made headlines for a New York Times op-ed in which she cited gender and not race as "probably the most restricting force in American life".<ref name=opinion>Template:Cite news</ref> She elaborated, "Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women."<ref name=opinion />

Steinem again drew attention for, according to the New York Observer, seeming "to denigrate the importance of John McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam"; Steinem's broader argument "was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Following McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Steinem penned an op-ed in which she labeled Palin an "unqualified woman" who "opposes everything most other women want and need", described her nomination speech as "divisive and deceptive", called for a more inclusive Republican Party, and concluded that Palin resembled "Phyllis Schlafly, only younger".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

2016 election

Steinem at an event campaigning for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in September 2016.

In an HBO interview with Bill Maher, Steinem, when asked to explain the broad support for Bernie Sanders among young Democratic women, responded, "When you're young, you're thinking, 'Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.'"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Her comments triggered widespread criticism, and Steinem later issued an apology and said her comments had been "misinterpreted".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Steinem endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election,<ref>Brendan, J. International Business Times Template:Webarchive February 10, 2016.</ref> despite being an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (who endorsed Bernie Sanders).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Steinem was an honorary co-chair of and speaker at the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

CIA ties and leader of Independent Research Service

In 1967, Steinem revealed in an interview with The New York Times that she worked full time from 1958 until 1962 at the Independent Research Service, which was largely financed by the CIA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, published a report that Steinem and others put together on the Vienna Youth Festival and its attendees for the Independent Research Service.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Redstockings raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the CIA, which Steinem denied.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Steinem defended her relationship to the CIA, saying: "In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable."<ref name=chicagotribunereports>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Steinem had a four-year relationship with the publisher Mortimer Zuckerman.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On September 3, 2000, at age 66, Steinem married David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale.<ref name="BiographyCom" /> The wedding was performed at the home of her friend Wilma Mankiller, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Steinem became stepmother to Bale's four adult children; she has no biological children. Steinem and Bale were married for only three years before he died of brain lymphoma on December 30, 2003, at age 62.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

As of 2021, Steinem lives in New York's Upper East Side, where she owns the first three floors of her historic brownstone apartment building. On her 87th birthday, Google Arts & Culture launched a virtual tour of her home, where she has lived since 1966.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Steinem was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and trigeminal neuralgia in 1994.<ref name="Gorney">Template:Cite news</ref>

Commenting on aging, Steinem says that as she approached 60 she felt like she entered a new phase in life that was free of the "demands of gender" that she faced from adolescence onward.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

When taking part in season 5 of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., comedian Tig Notaro discovered she and Steinem are distant cousins.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Political positions

Gloria Steinem (right) and Alice Walker celebrate Steinem's 75th birthday in the Fall 2009 issue of Ms.

Although most frequently considered a liberal feminist, Steinem has repeatedly characterized herself as a radical feminist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> More importantly, she has repudiated categorization within feminism as "nonconstructive to specific problems", saying: "I've turned up in every category. So it makes it harder for me to take the divisions with great seriousness."<ref name="Gorney" /> Nevertheless, on concrete issues, Steinem has staked several firm positions.

Female genital mutilation

In 1979, Steinem wrote the article on female genital mutilation that brought it into the American public's consciousness; the article "The International Crime of Female Genital Mutilation" was published in the March 1979 issue of Ms.<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name =crime>"The International Crime of Female Genital Mutilation", by Gloria Steinem. Ms., March 1979, p. 65.</ref> The article reported on the "75 million women suffering with the results of genital mutilation".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=crime /> According to Steinem, "The real reasons for genital mutilation can only be understood in the context of the "patriarchy": men must control women's bodies as the means of production, and thus repress the independent power of women's sexuality."<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=crime />

Steinem's article contains the basic arguments that would later be developed by philosopher Martha Nussbaum.<ref>Nussbaum, Martha C. Sex & Social Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 118–129.</ref>

Feminist theory

Steinem at the LBJ Library in 2019

Steinem has frequently voiced her disapproval of the obscurantism and abstractions some claim to be prevalent in feminist academic theorizing.<ref name="Gorney" /><ref name="Denes">Template:Cite news</ref> She said, "Nobody cares about feminist academic writing. That's careerism. These poor women in academia have to talk this silly language that nobody can understand in order to be acceptedTemplate:Nbsp[...] But I recognize the fact that we have this ridiculous system of tenure, that the whole thrust of academia is one that values education, in my opinion, in inverse ratio to its usefulness—and what you write in inverse relationship to its understandability."<ref name="Gorney" /> Steinem later singled out deconstructionists like Judith Butler for criticism, saying, "I always wanted to put a sign up on the road to Yale saying, 'Beware: Deconstruction Ahead'. Academics are forced to write in language no one can understand so that they get tenure. They have to say 'discourse', not 'talk'. Knowledge that is not accessible is not helpful. It becomes aerialised—and I think it's important that women's experiences be given a narrative."<ref name="Denes" />

Kinsey Reports

In addition to feminism, Steinem has also been a prominent advocate for analyzing the Kinsey Reports.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

Pornography

Template:Broader Steinem has criticized pornography, which she distinguishes from erotica. She wrote that "erotica is as different from pornography as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain".<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=Erotica>Erotica and Pornography: A Clear and Present Difference. Ms. November 1978, p. 53. & Pornography—Not Sex but the Obscene Use of Power. Ms. August 1977, p. 43. Both retrieved November 16, 2014.</ref> Steinem's argument hinges on the distinction between reciprocity versus domination. "Blatant or subtle, pornography involves no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the clear idea that one person is dominating the other."<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=Erotica />

On the issue of same-sex pornography, Steinem asserts, "Whatever the gender of the participants, all pornography including male-male gay pornography is an imitation of the male-female, conqueror-victim paradigm, and almost all of it actually portrays or implies enslaved women and master."<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=Erotica /> Steinem has also cited "snuff films" as a serious threat to women.<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp<ref name=Erotica />

Same-sex marriage

In an essay published in Time magazine on August 31, 1970, "What Would It Be Like If Women Win", Steinem wrote about same-sex marriage in the context of the "Utopian" future she envisioned, writing:

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Although Steinem did not mention or advocate same-sex marriage in any published works or interviews for more than three decades, she again expressed support for same-sex marriage in the early 2000s, stating in 2004 that "[the] idea that sexuality is only okay if it ends in reproduction oppresses women—whose health depends on separating sexuality from reproduction—as well as gay men and lesbians."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Steinem is also a signatory of the 2008 manifesto, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships", which advocates extending legal rights and privileges to a wide range of relationships, households, and families.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Transgender rights

In 1977, Steinem expressed disapproval that the heavily publicized sex reassignment surgery of tennis player Renée Richards had been in her opinion characterized as either a frightening look at what feminism could cause or as proof that feminism was no longer necessary. Steinem wrote that the issue was at minimum "a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality." She also wrote that, while she supported the right of individuals to identify as they choose, she believed some transsexuals "surgically mutilate their own bodies" in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts. She claimed that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism."<ref name="OutrageousActs" />Template:Rp

On October 2, 2013, Steinem clarified her remarks on transgender people in an op-ed for The Advocate, writing that critics failed to consider that her 1977 essay was "written in the context of global protests against routine surgical assaults, called female genital mutilation by some survivors."<ref name="Steinem">Template:Cite web</ref> Steinem later in the piece expressed unequivocal support for transgender people, saying that transgender people "including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned."<ref name="Steinem" /> She also apologized for any pain her words might have caused.<ref name="Steinem" />

On June 15, 2020, Steinem co-wrote a letter with Mona Sinha to the editor of The New York Times, in which they opposed the elimination of civil rights protections for transgender healthcare by the Trump administration. In it, they made note of precolonial American traditions of gender variance and claimed that "the health of any of us affects the health of all of us, and excluding trans people endangers us all."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Desired legacy

In 2024 Steinem said she hoped her legacy would be that her work "might help individual people... to become more the unique, valuable, loved and lovable person that they want to be."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Selected awards and honors

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In media

Steinem on the cover of Ms. in 2002

Biographies

Documentaries

Portrayals by others

Appearances

Mentions

  • In the musical Legally Blonde, which premiered in 2007, Steinem is mentioned in the scene where Elle Woods wears a flashy Bunny costume to a party, and must pretend to be dressed as Gloria Steinem "researching her feminist manifesto 'I Was A Playboy BunnyTemplate:' ". (The actual name of the piece by Steinem being referred to here is "A Bunny's Tale".)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • In 2016, Steinem was featured in the catalog of clothing retailer Lands' End. After an outcry from anti-abortion customers, the company removed Steinem from their website. The company then faced further criticism online, this time both from customers who were still unhappy that Steinem had been featured in the first place, and customers who were unhappy that Steinem had been removed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • In Jennifer Lopez's 2016 music video for her song "Ain't Your Mama", Steinem can be heard saying part of her "Address to the Women of America" speech, specifically, "This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Works

The Gloria Steinem Papers are held in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, under collection number MS 237.<ref name=Sophia>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

References

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Further reading

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