Gloria Steinem, trailblazing figure in women's liberation movement, dies at 92
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Updated on: September 3, 2026 / 6:34 AM EDT / CBS News
Gloria Steinem, a co-founder of Ms. Magazine and a trailblazing figure of the women's liberation movement in the latter half of the 20th century, has died. She was 92.
The Gloria Steinem Foundation said in a social media post Thursday that she "passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her." The cause of death is not yet known.
"As Gloria wrote in her forthcoming book, ππ― ππ―π¦πΉπ±π¦π€π΅π¦π₯ ππͺπ§π¦, 'I have now lived for more than fifty years in this brownstone, in rooms that have witnessed lives before mine, and will know others after I am gone,'" the post continuted. "This book, along with her commitment to her home becoming a center for social justice movements, are among the many gifts Gloria has given the world with the hope they have ripple effects for generations to come."
Heralded by Newsweek magazine in 1971 as "The New Woman," Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine, the first major publication to be owned, run and written by women. Ms. was a spearhead for the promotion of equal rights, helping to raise awareness about issues of inclusion, media representation and social justice affecting women and girls, at a time when politics, mass media and consumerism were becoming conflated as never before. As a journalist, Steinem exploded the notions that "women's issues" were confined to women, or that female voices did not belong in discussions of politics or war.
Steinem was a tireless advocate for women's voices in politics – at the ballot box, and in the halls of power – by fighting for voting rights, and promoting female candidates for office. She advanced the cause of economic and social justice for women and girls, including reproductive freedom and safety from domestic violence, and worked to advance women in media. And a simple idea, Take Our Daughters to Work Day, begun by the Ms. Foundation for Women to advance opportunities in the workplace, would become a global endeavor encompassing millions of daughters (and sons) as it fought gender stereotypes.
In her early years as a reporter for New York magazine in the late 1960s, Steinem attended a gathering of women speaking out about their experiences obtaining an illegal abortion. She told "Sunday Morning" in 2006 , "I heard women standing up and saying in public and taking seriously something that only affected women. Up until then, I'd never heard that. If it didn't also affect men, it couldn't be 'serious.' Something that was illegal, shameful, theoretically. (Women who had abortions) had to enter a criminal underground. And suddenly I thought, wait a minute: You know, if one and three or four of us, and I too, had had that experience, why is it illegal? And that was the beginning of the unraveling."
That "unraveling" of consciousness would lead to Ms. Magazine. Co-founded with activist Dorothy Pittman Hughes, the publication's first full issue appeared on newsstands on July 1, 1972. In addition to having Wonder Woman on its cover, the issue featured a petition signed by women of various backgrounds announcing that they had had an abortion and were demanding that it become safe and legal. [It would be another year before the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade.)
Katherine Spillar, an executive editor of Ms., who compiled a 2023 anthology titled "50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution," told "Sunday Morning" that the magazine started and amplified trends, including "a lot of articles about men and marriage and relationships and childrearing and politics and violence against women – [issues] that keep coming back. And it shows the endurance of this movement, but also the endurance of our opponents."
And of course there was controversy. A cover photo advertising a story about sexual harassment on the job, depicting a man fondling a doll, got the magazine pulled off newsstands. And selling ads was a challenge; the head of a major cosmetics company told Steinem that women who read Ms. don't buy makeup, while car manufacturers didn't want to advertise because they didn't believe women bought cars.
Still, the magazine persisted, and won awards while publishing articles by such writers as Barbara Ehrenreich, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Susan Faludi, Susan Brownmiller, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Jane Wagner. It continued as feminism itself charted new courses. While coming under attack from commentators on the right (who claimed the magazine denigrated "family values"), Ms. was also attacked by some on the left (who claimed the magazine was too conservative and lacked a diversity of opinion).
Steinem said that, as the women's liberation movement picked up steam, the very word "feminism" seemed to threaten people for two reasons: "One, because they didn't understand it, and two, because they did understand it!"
Ms. underwent several owners beginning in the 1980s (including a female-driven consortium of investors led by Steinem herself), and a period of ad-free publication, before transitioning to a quarterly. And it continued as the status of women in America changed. In 1972, only 10 percent of doctors, four percent of lawyers, and one percent of engineers were women. Five decades later, those percentages were 38 , 41 , and 16 , respectively.
But Steinem said the revolution about equality for women is still being fought. "There's a barrier that has moved, but there's still a barrier," Steinem told "Sunday Morning" in 2006 . "So, what used to be you couldn't get a job, now you hit a ceiling after a few years. What used to be unequal marriage, is now unequal after children are born. The barrier has moved, thank goodness. So, there's more room back here that's liberated. But the barrier is still there to be pushed."
And while some were denigrating the term "feminism" itself since the 1960s, Steinem told "CBS This Morning" in 2015 that she believed the core tenets of feminismβ¦
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