American journalist, writer and activist icon Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at 92 on September 2 at her residence in New York City, the family foundation reported. She was surrounded by close family and collaborators. The passing of this figure who embodied the second wave of feminism closes a chapter of more than five decades of action for gender equality, reproductive rights and women's political participation. The specific cause of death was not made public.
Born on March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem completed her studies at Smith College in 1956 and spent two years in India collaborating with the local press before moving to New York. Her leap to national scrutiny came in 1963, when, working for Show magazine, she went undercover as a disguised "bunny" waitress at the Playboy Club in Manhattan. She documented the abusive working hours and submission to humiliating physical inspections, demystifying the glamour of the corporate erotic industry. In 1972, she founded the pioneering Ms. magazine, the first publication managed and edited entirely by women, whose debut issue included a collective manifesto by figures who publicly declared they had undergone abortions when the procedure remained illegal.
Steinem joined in 1971 the founding core of the National Women's Political Caucus alongside Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm and Betty Friedan, with the aim of training and funding women to run for public office. She also created the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Women's Media Center to monitor women's underrepresentation in the media. Her work contributed to changes in federal banking regulations that required a male guardian's signature for women to open accounts or apply for credit cards. In November 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, and in 2021 Spain honored her with the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.
Steinem was one of the first voices to advocate that the struggle of middle-class white women could not be separated from the oppression experienced by ethnic minorities, having confessed in an interview with The New Yorker that "women of color basically invented feminism." International reactions multiplied, with Hillary Clinton saluting one of the "architects of the entire structure of women's equality." Her 2015 autobiography, My Life on the Road, served as the basis for the film The Glorias, released in 2020 under the direction of Julie Taymor, and a new memoir, An Unexpected Life, was scheduled for release this September.
