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Gloria Steinem, Ms. magazine co-founder and feminist leader, dies at 92
Jay Godwin / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain · source
The writer and activist died at her New York home on Sept. 2. Her foundation said she kept working for equality until the end.
Gloria Steinem, a leading voice of second-wave U.S. feminism and co-founder of Ms. magazine, died Sept. 2, 2026, at her New York City home at age 92. Her foundation said she passed peacefully, surrounded by people who loved her, and continued working for equality until the end.
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Gloria Steinem, who became a leader of the women's liberation movement in the US, has died aged 92
3 Sep 2026
Facts
Steinem was a writer and magazine editor.
Steinem later celebrated the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling granting a constitutional right to abortion.
Ms. magazine was one of the first publications to focus on women's issues other than housekeeping and beauty.
Steinem spoke out in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.
Steinem spoke out for equal rights and pay for women.
Steinem protested against the death penalty.
Steinem had a difficult childhood.
In India Steinem helped village women organise non-violent protests against government policies.
Clinton told CBS Mornings that Gloria was at heart an optimist.
Writers and feminists posted Instagram tributes on Thursday, some saying Steinem had changed their lives.
Clinton said Steinem's activism was rooted in optimism as a moral choice she made every day.
Markle said that privately Steinem was even better than people would imagine.
Markle said she wears with pride a bracelet Steinem gave her that says we are linked, not ranked.
Opinion
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Leading U.S. feminist Gloria Steinem dead at 92
3 Sep 2026
Facts
Steinem died just before a planned memoir was to be released this fall.
In a 2019 CBC News interview Steinem said she had not seen as much grassroots activism in all her years as during Trump's first term.
Steinem was comparing that activism to President Donald Trump's first term.
Steinem said her role is to listen to younger women and ask what she can do to help.
Steinem said it is not to tell anybody what to do; it is to listen.
Patti Smith shared a photo of Steinem, calling her the greatest.
Tributes to Steinem began pouring in from leaders, cultural figures and women inspired by her.
The two had appeared at multiple events together to encourage voting and advance women's rights.
Lena Dunham wrote that she was honoured to have known Steinem and learned sides of her not everyone saw, including that Call The Midwife was her wind-down show.
Dunham wrote that Steinem was generous with her time, laughter and even jewelry, once giving Dunham a silver vulva ring.
Steinem told the AP in 2015 that editors were not interested in letting her write about the women's movement.
Many commentators, especially male, dismissed Ms. as ridiculous and predicted an early demise.
Then-president Richard Nixon was caught on an Oval Office tape ridiculing Steinem and the Ms. title.
In a 1972 National Press Club speech Steinem called Nixon the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon.
Steinem also had to deal with hostility, which sometimes came from surprising places.
On Larry King's CNN show in 1990 a female caller told Steinem to rot in hell because she had ruined the beautiful American family.
Steinem married at 66.
Steinem noted that by then at least people were taking feminists seriously.
Ms. magazine continues, published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Opinion
CBC said Steinem became one of the most potent voices of the feminist movement.
CBC called Steinem a celebrated U.S. author and activist.
Steinem wrote that laughter was the only free emotion, the only one that can't be compelled.
Gloria Steinem, feminist writer and activist, dead at 92
3 Sep 2026
Facts
Steinem co-founded the Women's Media Center in 2004.
The biography said she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa.
Her website said she was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice for 25 years.
Opinion
The statement invoked Gloria's love of lighting signal fires to show the way.
Gloria Steinem, fierce feminist trailblazer, dies at 92
3 Sep 2026
Facts
Gloria Steinem has died.
The post did not give a cause of death.
NBC said the movement she fronted helped women get credit cards without a man's signature, enter previously barred Ivy League schools, and legally get an abortion.
Steinem was 22 when she discovered the unwanted pregnancy.
Steinem said seeing doctors dismiss her mother's needs pushed her to get women more of a voice.
Steinem said she did not want to end up taking care of someone else.
Steinem did not publicly reveal her abortion until 1969.
Steinem told NPR she had fantasies of ending the pregnancy by horseback riding or falling down stairs.
In 1976 Ms. was the first national publication to put domestic violence on its cover.
Steinem wrote Playboy clubs took large portions of tips and forced skimpy outfits and high heels.
In 1992 she released Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem.
In September 2020 Steinem spoke about how she handled criticism.
Mrs. America, an FX miniseries, streamed on Hulu in 2020.
Steinem told the Times Bale helped her learn to live in the moment.
In 2020 Steinem told the Times she intended to live to 100.
Opinion
In 2019 Steinem told Al Jazeera no one is pro abortion.
Steinem said nobody would choose an abortion if they didn’t have to.
Steinem said if Trump spoke well of her, she would shoot herself.
Steinem told the Times the most painful criticism comes from people who share your values.
Steinem said it is possible to make an equal marriage.
Steinem said she hoped not to die saying But wait.
Gloria Steinem, groundbreaking feminist campaigner, dies aged 92
3 Sep 2026
Facts
In 1984 she was arrested protesting apartheid outside the South African embassy in Washington.
Steinem directed the Independent Research Service, a CIA front recruiting students to disrupt Soviet-backed youth festivals.
Neighbor Debbie Goldberg left red flowers at Steinem's front steps.
Goldberg said she saw Steinem speak in Washington about 30 years ago and later ran into her at the Barbie movie in 2023.
Steinem later said she had always known who funded it and would do it again.
When Steinem was 10 her parents separated; she grew up in Toledo with her mother.
After the article she said she could not get work because she had become a Bunny.
In 1962 Clay Felker at Esquire gave her a first serious journalism assignment.
Steinem lost 10 pounds during the Bunny stint; her manager then made the costume two inches tighter.
Steinem credited Black feminists including Florynce Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm and Fannie Lou Hamer with teaching her activism.
Steinem was criticized for decades for a 1998 New York Times piece supporting Bill Clinton amid sexual harassment allegations.
Steinem wrote Clinton was not guilty of sexual harassment, only a reckless pass.
In 2017 she said she would not write the same Clinton piece now.
In 2013 she clarified that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living authentic lives.
In 2011 she told the Observer she hoped to live to 100 because there was so much to do.
Opinion
Steinem told the Observer she agreed that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Steinem said you can't perpetuate racism without controlling women and reproduction.
Steinem said that time was like finding a family.
Steinem said women share hopes, a vision of the world, and a certain shit detector.
In 2017 Steinem said we have to believe women.
The Guardian said Steinem was also a polarising figure.
Steinem said those lives should be celebrated, not questioned.
Steinem told the Guardian the only good news of Trump was a galvanizing of activism unlike anything she had seen.
Steinem said the activism was a thousand times more than even the Vietnam War.
Goldberg said Steinem was one of the most influential people for women’s and human rights.
Goldberg said Steinem is a hero to all women whether they know it or not.
Goldberg said Steinem had always been an idol of hers.
Steinem said she was going to direct her life, and therefore it felt positive.
Gloria Steinem, charismatic feminist, has died
3 Sep 2026
Facts
A woman on a Harley told Steinem how much Ms. magazine had meant to her and her husband.
The woman said she put Ms. on her license plate and rode her own purple Harley.
Tillet recalled Gloria saying it was fine when a toddler jumped on her bed.
Steinem recalled in 1983 that she knew.
The doctor’s first condition was that she never reveal his name; she later did, after his death.
The doctor’s second condition was that she do what she wanted with her life.
The first Ms. edition, a 40-page New York magazine insert, sold out in eight days.
An open letter from 53 prominent women, including Billie Jean King, Judy Collins and Steinem, said they had undergone abortions.
Susan Brownmiller said in 2016 that guys in the media chose Gloria as the movement’s leader.
Harry Reasoner predicted on TV that Ms. would run out of things to say in six months.
At 80 Steinem celebrated her birthday by riding an elephant in Botswana.
Opinion
Steinem wrote in her 2015 memoir that inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle.
Friend Salamishah Tillet said for Steinem the personal was the political.
Tillet said Gloria treated feminism as something you practice every day, including in private.
Michele Goodwin said Gloria often said she was not giving up a torch.
Goodwin said Steinem used her torch to light other torches.
Goodwin said Steinem truly understood intersectionality.
Steinem asked why women should feel criminal and alone if one in three or four shares the experience.
Steinem recalled she was no longer only learning intellectually what was wrong.
Brownmiller said she hoped history would show Gloria came in later than her loyal supporters claim.
Steinem wrote we have only to discover that motorcycle and ride.
Steinem called the tango a sick, authoritarian dance, but said she loved it.