Gloria Steinem, the feminist and journalist as well as the founder of Ms. Magazine, has died. She was 92 years old. She passed at her New York home, according to CBS News.
BREAKING: Women's liberation icon Gloria Steinem has died.
— ABC News (@ABC) September 3, 2026
"Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her," a post on her official Instagram said.
Read more: https://t.co/myrr1EzBWr pic.twitter.com/8jHdfGc79e
"Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her," a post on an official social media channel said. "Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end."
The outspoken activist and journalist was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio. She studied government at Smith College in Massachusetts, and graduated magna cum laude in 1956.
Afterward, she spent two years studying and researching in India thanks to the Chester Bowles Fellowship, which inspired her grassroots activism later in life.
Steinem was known for her role in the rise of so-called second wave feminism in the U.S.
Women’s rights activists Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92.
— Pop Base (@PopBase) September 3, 2026
She was most known as a nationally recognised leader of second-wave feminism in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/p3Y4V5ILEt
She worked as a columnist for New York Magazine, and her 1969 article "After Black Power, Women's Liberation" brought her to public fame and positioned her as a feminist leader.
Gloria Steinem will go down in history as one of the most important activists of all time, leading a movement for the equality of half the world: its women.
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) September 3, 2026
She lived a long and passionate life dedicated to this vital and basic cause.
She did it with intellectual precision,…
During the 1990s, Steinem helped establish the "Tak OUr Daughters to Work Day" and in 2005, Steinem co-founded the Women's Media Center with Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan.
Gloria Steinem, a co-founder of Ms. Magazine and a trailblazing figure of the women's liberation movement, has died. She was 92 years old.
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) September 3, 2026
In 2023, Rita Braver spoke with Steinem about the origin of the magazine, which aimed to push feminism into the mainstream: "We didn't want… pic.twitter.com/RioOrjKsTD
She was born in Toledo, Ohio. In 1944, her parents divorced amid her mother's mental illness. Steinem said seeing her mother's inability to hold a job or get proper medical attention was driven by society's "anti-woman animus" and convinced Steinem that women lacked equality.
In 1957, Steinem had an abortion when it was still illegal and later dedicated her book, "My Life on the Road," to the British physician who performed the procedure.
In the 1960s she worked for Esquire and Cosmopolitan, as well as New York Magazine. In 1972 she founded Ms. Magazine to bring feminism into the mainstream.
Gloria Steinem wrote the foreword to my first book: an anthology of essays about the Arab Spring, put together when I was 24.
— Sohrab Ahmari 🇺🇸 (@SohrabAhmari) September 3, 2026
I had to visit her grand apartment to solicit this, one of my most surreal experiences: "Can I get you a beer?" (Gloria Steinem asked me that!)
RIP.
Steinem was active in politics for decades, including endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016.
In 2000, Steinem married David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale. David Bale died of cancer in 2003. Steinem had no children.
Join the Conversation
VIP members get the ability to comment on articles.