---
title: "Feminist activist Gloria Steinem dies at 92"
description: "The pioneering American feminist, writer, organiser and co-founder of Ms. Magazine will be remembered for decades-long advocacy for women’s civil, reproductive and political rights."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "‘SINGULAR JOURNEY’"
author: "Reuters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/reuters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-03-feminist-activist-gloria-steinem-dies-at-92/"
published: "2026-09-03T13:26:27"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1140
---

# Feminist activist Gloria Steinem dies at 92

> The pioneering American feminist, writer, organiser and co-founder of Ms. Magazine will be remembered for decades-long advocacy for women’s civil, reproductive and political rights.

By Reuters · Published 3 September 2026, 15:26 SAST

## Key points
- Gloria Steinem, the US writer, organiser and co‑founder of Ms. Magazine, has died aged 92, her foundation announced — a defining voice of second‑wave feminism.
- For more than five decades she pushed for reproductive, civil and political rights, helping build groups such as the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation and the Women’s Media Center.
- Her 1963 exposé “A Bunny’s Tale,” a high‑profile abortion speak‑out and bold early issues of Ms. brought abortion, equal pay and domestic violence into mainstream debate.
- An enduring public figure — author, producer and subject of films and plays, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient — Steinem’s life mixed activism, cultural glamour and complex personal choices. Read the full story for a closer look at her legacy.

## Content

Gloria Steinem, the American writer, lecturer, activist and organiser who fought for gender equality and women’s civil and reproductive rights for more than five decades, has died, her foundation said. She was 92.

The co-founder and consulting editor of Ms. Magazine championed the feminist movement from the late 1960s onwards and inspired generations of women.

She died on Wednesday, her foundation said in ​an Instagram post on Thursday.

“From reluctant spokesperson to a beacon of positive change, hers is a singular journey – an American leader who can speak to us all,” film and theater ‌director Julie Taymor said of Steinem in a 2017 New York Times interview.

Taymor directed the 2020 film The Glorias, depicting Steinem’s life across the years and based on her 2015 bestselling autobiography, My Life on the Road. She was also the subject of a 2018 play, Gloria: A Life, and a 2011 HBO documentary, Gloria: In Her Own Words.

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/zDaLUMm1tYl8oRBil43wsh9l0Yg=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1490810038_347398.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem speaks onstage during the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards: Celebrating Generations of Progress & Power at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City on 16 May 2023. (Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty Images / Ms. Foundation for Women)*

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/kmj6lhD79yGkKtErz7gLV15iCqg=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1717938362_922256.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem at the New York Screening of No Accident at Hudson Yards on 4 October 2023. (Photo: Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images for HBO)*

Steinem said she considered herself “an entrepreneur of social change”.

“I want to do justice to the women I meet, to tell their stories,” she told the New Yorker magazine in 2015. “It’s ​making connections, and using myself to listen, because we can’t empower women without listening to their stories.”

Steinem 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 also created the Coalition of Labor ⁠Union Women, the Women’s Media Center, Voters for Choice, and the Ms. Foundation for Women.

In 2013 the then president, Barack Obama, awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour.

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/HNjU6Cdx9uwWIYOg1lzTrn7AKMY=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1730523079_522294.jpg)

*Errin Haines and Gloria Steinem attend as Equality Now Hosts of the Make Equality Reality Gala at Guastavino’s in New York City on 11 October 2023. (Photo: Sean Zanni / Getty Images for Equality Now)*

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/uyO5eXh9fZS-KtrW8ZHMqj5NfXU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1490796291_808153.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem attends the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City on 16 May 2023. (Photo: Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images Ms. Foundation for Women)*

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/ms7Up8M-FHWC1Ir4vBYvxkczOUI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1442334896_627378.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem attends the WMC 2022 Women’s Media Awards at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City on 17 November 2022. (Photo: Dave Kotinsky / Getty Images for WMC)*

With her signature long, blonde-streaked, centre-parted ​hair and aviator glasses, Steinem was the glamorous, hip symbol of the feminist movement, which she emphasised should embrace women of every race.

“If you’ve suffered discrimination, you’re sensitive to it on every level. I learned feminism ​largely from Black women. Women of colour basically invented feminism,” she told the New Yorker.

### A Bunny’s Tale

Steinem was born on 25 March 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, the younger of two daughters. Her father was a travelling antique dealer. Because the family moved frequently she did not attend school regularly until about seventh grade.

Her parents separated when she was 11, following which Steinem lived with and took care of her mother, who had a mental breakdown and suffered from depression.

The experience impacted Steinem’s views ​on social injustice and marriage, which she believed robbed women of choices and many of their civil rights.

“I’d already been the very small parent of a very big child, my mother. I didn’t want to end ​up taking care of someone else,” she was quoted as saying.

After graduating from Smith College, Steinem began freelancing as a journalist.

In 1963, she worked as a Playboy bunny for 11 days for a story for Show magazine. Her two-part ‌groundbreaking exposé, A Bunny’s ⁠Tale, detailed the poor pay and sexist treatment Playboy bunnies – originally waitstaff – endured. The story was made into a 1985 TV movie starring Kirstie Alley.

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

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/ubv9vcxhV64ThcLxJwoFSWMEAHQ=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2259763624_769424.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem speaks during a conversation with Amy Richards: Rise, Girl, Rise at 92NY in New York City on 2 February 2026. (Photo: Arturo Holmes / Getty Images)*

Ms. Magazine, which she co-founded in 1971, tackled abortion and other issues such as sexism, equal pay and domestic ​violence – 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 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that recognised women’s constitutional right to abortion in the US for nearly half a century.

### ‘Quintessence of female revolution’

Steinem was ​often critical of the limitations of marriage. “Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it,” she said.

She had ​no children of her own ⁠and it was not until she turned 66 that she decided to wed – to South African businessman and environmentalist David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale.

“I hope this proves what feminists have always said – that feminism is about the ability to choose what’s right at each time of our lives,” she said in a statement about the marriage. David Bale died of brain cancer in 2003.

Steinem continued working into her eighties. She wrote numerous books, including ⁠1986’s Marilyn: Norma Jean ​about Marilyn Monroe, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem about personal development, and books of essays.

![Reuters-Gloria Steinem dies](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/JL5xP_jYjmBT5cwgonhuDwcJFtE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2265654704_262145.jpg)

*Gloria Steinem celebrates International Women’s Day at the New York Stock Exchange on 9 March 2026. (Photo: Kevin Mazur / Kevin MazurGetty Images for 11:11 Media)*

She narrated and conceived the idea for ​an Emmy Award-winning documentary about child abuse, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories, for HBO in 1993 and produced the Lifetime film Better Off Dead. She also hosted Woman, a documentary series about violence against women, for the Viceland TV channel.

Author Carolyn Heilbrun – who penned 1995 ​biography Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem – described her as “the epitome of female beauty and the quintessence of female revolution”. **DM**

*Reporting by Patricia Reaney, additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi. Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Ros Russell.*