Gloria Steinem died at age 92 at her home in New York City. A post on her official Instagram page said she died on Wednesday and that she had passed away peacefully, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.
The post did not give a cause of death. It also said she continued working for equality until the very end.
Gloria Steinem and women’s rights
Steinem dedicated her life to reproductive freedom, domestic violence prevention, and workplace gender inequalities. She helped change rights for women so they could apply for credit cards without a man's signature, be admitted to Ivy League schools that previously barred them, and legally get an abortion in the United States.
Her work reached beyond one issue. She was a pioneer of the 1960s' era of second-wave feminism, and she earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Playboy bunny exposé
In 1963, Steinem went undercover as a Playboy bunny and wrote an exposé about poor working conditions in Hugh Hefner's Playboy clubs. The piece became part of the public record that built her profile as a journalist and activist before her later national prominence.
That earlier work fits the same pattern as her later advocacy: she kept returning to the conditions that shaped women’s choices, first in pay and workplace treatment, then in school access and reproductive freedom.
Toledo, Ohio, 1934
Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio. She and her older sister, Susanne, spent much of their early years crisscrossing the country with their mother, Ruth, and their father, Leo, and she did not attend school regularly until she was 11.
She graduated from Smith College in 1956 with a degree in government. At 22, while overseas in London after graduation, she discovered she was carrying an unwanted pregnancy. Her representatives asked fans to light a candle in her honor and donate to Gloria’s Foundation.
What remains open is the cause of her death. What is already clear is that the public notice treats her last days as part of the same through line as her career: she kept working for equality, and the request now is simple — honor that work, then support Gloria’s Foundation.
