Gloria Steinem, feminist icon and activist, dies at 92

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.

In 1968, Steinem helped found New York magazine, where her essay titled "After Black Power, Women's Liberation" established her as a feminist leader at a time of roiling social change.

But it was not until she attended an abortion speak-out in a New York church the following year that Steinem — who had a then-illegal abortion in London when she was 22 — said her life as a feminist activist really began.

"That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me," Steinem told The AP in an email in 2022, reflecting on the reversal of Roe v Wade.

Ms. Magazine, which she co-founded in 1971, tackled abortion and other issues such as sexism, equal pay, and domestic violence.

The magazine was a far cry from the diet of beauty, cookery and supporting-your-husband topics that were the staple of magazines aimed at women.

An early issue included the names of 52 women, including Steinem, who had had abortions, and called for the procedure to be legalised ahead of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.

Steinem also founded the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971 with former US representatives Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm and writer Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique ushered in the second wave of feminism.

Among other groups, she created the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Women's Media Center, Voters for Choice, and the Ms. Foundation for Women.

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.

"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 1971 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 Mr 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."