Gloria Steinem, who died on Wednesday at her home in New York City, did not exactly want to carry the mantle of being one of the most prominent and recognizable faces of the modern women’s rights movement.
For many, her long, streaked, center-parted hair and aviator glasses would go on to become synonymous with the movement that, in the 1960s and 70s, helped usher in tectonic social change and legal protections for women.
But to Steinem, the very notion of a singular figurehead — particularly a white woman — felt antithetical to the mission of the women’s rights movement. When Newsweek magazine put Steinem’s face on its cover in 1971 with the headline “The New Woman,” she refused to be interviewed for it. Each time she spoke in public, she would only do so if there was a woman of color on stage with her, hoping that would force others to widen their aperture.
In a 2015 interview with Lena Dunham, she pushed back on the idea that she would inevitably need to pass on a figurative torch that was thrust into her hands. “The very idea that there’s one torch is bullshit,” she told Dunham.
As the granddaughter of a suffragist and daughter of a journalist, Steinem seemed to have inherited her mission. After graduating from Smith College, she worked as a journalist herself — one of her most enduring pieces from that time included going undercover as a Playboy bunny. In 1968, she became one of the founders of New York magazine before going on to start Ms. magazine in 1971, a publication that fearlessly covered what were then considered taboo topics, including abortion, sexual harassment and domestic violence, and challenged the very foundation of what a women’s magazine could be.
Over the next half century, she would help form the National Women’s Political Caucus, lead political marches, raise funds for social causes (since her 50th birthday, she turned her birthday bashes into fundraisers) and host talking circles in her home until her last days.
In a 2010 interview, when asked what she felt her greatest accomplishment was for the women’s movement, she chuckled.
“I haven’t made it yet,” she said.
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