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Gloria Steinem, one of the leading figures of the US women’s rights movement, feminist activist and journalist, has died at the age of 92, according to the BBC.
She died peacefully at her home in New York on Wednesday (September 2), her foundation said in an Instagram post. She was surrounded by many of her loved ones in her final moments.
Known as a writer and magazine editor, Steinem co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance more than five decades ago, an organisation that worked against gender discrimination.
She began her career in journalism in New York and later co-founded Ms. magazine, one of the first publications of its time to focus on women’s rights and broader issues affecting their lives, at a time when most publications aimed at women concentrated on household matters and beauty.
Steinem became a prominent activist on various issues in the 1970s, including women’s reproductive rights.
She underwent an illegal abortion in London at the age of 22. Years later, she welcomed the US Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which recognised a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Nearly five decades later, she also witnessed the landmark ruling being overturned.
Alongside campaigning for equal rights and equal pay for women, Steinem also spoke out against the death penalty and female genital mutilation.
Born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem travelled to India on a research fellowship after completing university in the late 1950s. She spent nearly two years there, working in various fields and helping rural women organise nonviolent protests against government policies. The experience strengthened her interest in grassroots activism.
After returning to New York in the early 1960s, Steinem began working as a freelance writer and later became a columnist for New York magazine.
She was also known for her decision not to marry. However, in 2000, she married David Bale, a South Africa-born entrepreneur and environmentalist and the father of actor Christian Bale. David Bale died of brain lymphoma just three years after their marriage.
In 2013, then-US President Barack Obama awarded Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honour.
“Until the very end, she worked for equality,” her foundation said.