There Was Only One Gloria Steinem — And She Changed Everything
R.I.P… gone but never-ever forgotten. There was only one Gloria Steinem.
The groundbreaking journalist, writer, organizer and women’s liberation pioneer died Wednesday, September 2, 2026, at her home in New York City at age 92. Her death was announced Thursday by Gloria’s Foundation and her official social channels, which said she passed peacefully surrounded by people who loved her.
Her foundation said Steinem “continued working for equality until the very end.” Somehow that feels exactly right. For more than six decades, she did not simply talk about change from the sidelines — she helped drag conversations about women, power, race, work, reproductive freedom and representation directly into the American mainstream.
She was the whole humanitarian package.
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Keep Gloria Steinem’s Work Moving Forward
Revisit the writing that helped define modern feminism, support the organizing home she envisioned for the future, and keep her words in circulation.
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Born March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem first built her name as a journalist. One of the assignments that pushed her into national view came in 1963, when she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny and reported on the degrading working conditions inside New York’s Playboy Club.
But journalism was only one lane. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Steinem had become one of the most visible figures of the emerging women’s movement, using reporting, speeches, organizing and sheer persistence to force issues that had long been treated as private or unmentionable into public life.
Ms. Magazine Turned a Movement Into Something You Could Hold
Steinem helped create Ms. magazine at the beginning of the 1970s, giving the women’s movement a national publication willing to confront subjects other magazines routinely softened, ignored or refused to print at all.
The magazine became a home for reporting and arguments about abortion, domestic violence, sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, race, family, politics and LGBTQ lives — and helped popularize “Ms.” as a title that did not define a woman by whether she was married.
Steinem’s activism stretched well beyond publishing. She helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus and supported organizations devoted to political representation, labor rights, reproductive freedom and women in media. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Her public image — the long hair, aviator glasses and cool composure — became instantly recognizable, but the style was never the story. The work was. Steinem spent much of her life traveling, listening, speaking and organizing, often insisting that movements were built through people hearing one another rather than waiting for a single leader to deliver the answer.
A Life and Legacy That Stretched Across Generations
More archival imagery included with INYIM’s tribute appears below as we remember a life spent writing, organizing and pushing equality forward.
Even now, one final piece of Steinem’s voice is still on its way. Her new memoir, An Unexpected Life, is scheduled to be published by Random House on September 22, 2026. Announced on her 92nd birthday in March, the book reflects on the people, places and experiences that shaped her life and more than six decades of activism.
It will now arrive posthumously — one more chance to hear directly from a woman whose words helped generations recognize that what they had been told was merely personal was often political, structural and shared.
Gloria’s Foundation said one of her greatest gifts was making people feel seen and heard. That may be the cleanest way to understand the scale of her legacy. She did not only make herself visible. She spent a lifetime insisting that millions of other people deserved visibility, dignity and a voice, too.
We speak your name, Gloria Steinem. Gone — but never-ever forgotten.
Watch Gloria Steinem on the History of Ms. Magazine
In this 2023 CBS Sunday Morning interview, correspondent Rita Braver speaks with Steinem about the origins of Ms. and the feminist publishing revolution it helped build.
Sources: Gloria’s Foundation; Associated Press; Reuters; Ms.; Random House; CBS Sunday Morning.
