{"id":981,"date":"2026-09-03T17:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T17:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=981"},"modified":"2026-09-03T17:42:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T17:42:00","slug":"gloria-steinems-many-splendored-feminist-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=981","title":{"rendered":"Gloria Steinem’s Many-Splendored Feminist Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

There is no way to do justice to the 92 astonishing years of the incomparable feminist Gloria Steinem, who died at home, surrounded by friends, Wednesday night. I knew she had been weakening, and yet I still regularly heard of her meeting with women leaders and helping anyplace and anytime\u00a0 she could.<\/p>\n

Read more The Misremembered \u201990s of \u201cThe Backrooms\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Most recently, I got invited to a small New York reception with Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and actor-activist Jane Fonda, that I hoped might include Steinem. Flanagan slipped over to Steinem\u2019s home early for a private meeting with the Ms<\/em>. founder and Fonda. That was Steinem, I thought: always making time for new women leaders, in this case the 46-year-old progressive who will become the first Native senator if she is elected in November.<\/p>\n

Today, social media has been full of women, young and old, of every race, posting photos with Steinem taken over the last few years. She had not been well; I hadn\u2019t seen her in a little while. But if you had a feminist book out, a documentary, a cause, or if you were a woman running for a major office, Steinem made time for you.<\/p>\n

The author, organizer, feminist and friend to so many grew up, struggling, in East Toledo, Ohio, caring for her ill mother. It made her a many-splendored feminist, a gorgeous woman who traveled in\u00a0 elite circles but championed the working class, the vulnerable, women who weren\u2019t white, and women who weren\u2019t straight. (Her AOL email name was EastToledo; whenever that address graced my inbox, I felt thrilled.) Caring for her mother, Steinem didn\u2019t finish a full year of school until the sixth grade but was a voracious reader. She eventually followed her sister Suzanne to Smith College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steinem ultimately wrote 11 books and in addition to founding Ms. she was a co-founder of New York<\/em> magazine, along with Clay Felker, who also backed Ms. <\/em>Felker famously told a reporter he gave Steinem her first assignment because she had \u201cgreat legs.\u201d Cataloguing the list of sexist slurs, sometimes dressed up as compliments, that she suffered is not worth my time or yours. She mostly got over them.<\/p>\n

Steinem often said she was awakened to the feminist cause by covering a meeting of women discussing their illegal abortions. She\u2019d had one herself in 1957, in England. The experience of listening to what these women suffered for what would later (until the Dobbs<\/em> decision) be a right led to her famous essay, \u201cAfter Black Power, Women\u2019s Liberation.\u201d She was one of the first prominent white feminists to make a point of reaching out to and including Black women, from Flo Kennedy to Dorothy Pittman Hughes to Alice Walker to the legendary Rep. Shirley Chisholm, for whom she was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic presidential nominating convention.<\/p>\n

Read more Is the Israel Lobby Doomed?<\/a><\/p>\n

On the other hand, Steinem drew a lot of criticism for supporting Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama for president in 2008, and writing in The New York Times <\/em>that gender was a greater barrier than race in running for president. \u201cWhat worries me is that she is accused of \u2018playing the gender card\u2019 when citing the old boys\u2019 club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations,\u201d she wrote. Like Steinem, I supported Clinton in 2008; and in 2016 we were united behind her again. That year, Steinem made a rare stumble by suggesting young women were supporting Bernie Sanders because \u201cthat\u2019s where the boys are,\u201d an error she was led into by non-feminist Bill Maher during an appearance on Real Time <\/em>but for which she fervently apologized. (There were some sympathetic emails between me and \u201cEastToledo\u201d in those years.)<\/p>\n

Maybe it seems odd that the woman who wrote \u201cAfter Black Power, Women\u2019s Liberation\u201d in 1969 would support Clinton over Obama roughly 40 years later. Not to me. I would later wonder if I\u2019d been on the wrong side in that race, and of course Steinem and I would fervently support Obama in 2008 and 2012. But the obstinacy of gender barriers, the enduring double standards facing women politicians, and lately the absolute erosion of women\u2019s rights\u00a0 have made me understand even more deeply her frustration with the way women supporting Clinton \u201cwere seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn\u2019t.\u201d Since then, Steinem (and I) have supported another woman for president, Vice President Kamala Harris; since then, we have been disappointed again.<\/p>\n

Also since then, Steinem and I have gotten to support the historic Senate candidacy of Peggy Flanagan, and I wish she could have lived to see what I expect to be her victory. Here\u2019s what Flanagan wrote me this morning:<\/p>\n

\u201cGloria Steinem spent her life changing this country for the better. She helped generations of women believe they belonged in rooms where decisions are made, and she never stopped fighting for equality, dignity, and opportunity for everyone. It has been an incredible honor to get to know her over the last year and I\u2019m forever grateful for her friendship, her courage, and the example she set. I\u2019ll keep doing the work she dedicated her life to \u2013 for my daughter and for generations of women to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Kaepernick and the Movement He Inspired<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism"],"yoast_head":"\nGloria Steinem's Many-Splendored Feminist Life - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=981\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gloria Steinem's Many-Splendored Feminist Life - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=981\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-03T17:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Gloria Steinem’s Many-Splendored Feminist Life\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-03T17:42:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981\"},\"wordCount\":899,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/efea8fc985cc4c8c1697badc50d7775e.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Activism\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=981\",\"name\":\"Gloria Steinem's Many-Splendored Feminist Life - 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