Gloria Steinem was born March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, to antiques dealer Leo Steinem and his wife Ruth Nuneviller, who were respectively Jewish and Presbyterian. Her mother suffered a mental breakdown and was in and out of sanatoriums for the mentally ill, leading to her parents’ separation in 1944 and ultimately to their divorce. Her paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, chaired the educational committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association, was a delegate to the 1908 International Council of Women, and was the first woman elected to the Toledo Board of Education.
Steinem blamed hostility to women for her mother’s inability to hold onto a job and for doctors’ lack of empathy for her mother. She lived with her older sister Susanne Steinem Patch prior to graduating from Western High School in Washington D.C. She went on to Smith College where she graduated magna cum laude and as a Phi Beta Kappa. At age 22, Steinem had a then-illegal abortion in London before traveling to India as a Chester Bowles Asian Fellow. When she returned to the United States, she took a job with the Independent Research Service that turned out to be funded by the CIA. In 1960 she was hired by Warren Publishing. In 1962, Esquire magazine published her essay on how women often are forced to choose between marriage and a career.
The following year, she wrote an exposé on how Playboy Bunnies are exploited, prompting Hugh Hefner to improve working conditions at the Playboy Clubs. In 1968, she joined the staff of New York magazine, covering a pro-choice rally in 1969, the day that she later reflected had prompted her to become a feminist. She wrote an article “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” which brought her national fame. She campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 1971 Steinem was among the 300+ founding members of National Women’s Political Caucus
In 1972, she was a co-founder with five other women of the feminist magazine Ms. That same year, Steinem was the first woman to speak at the National Press Club, and ran a campaign to persuade DC Comics to restore Wonder Woman’s original powers. In 1976, she attended the first women-only Passover seder in the New York City apartment of Esther M. Broner. In 1979, she wrote a Ms article on female genital mutilation, bringing international attention to the practice.
She was politically active in other causes, including an anti-apartheid demonstration at which she, some members of Congress, and civil rights activist were arrested for a protest outside the South African embassy. In 1991, she opposed the Iraq War, the same year she supported Anita Hill in her allegations that Clarence Thomas, now a Supreme Court justice, had sexually assaulted her.
In 2000, at age 66, Steinem married David Bale, father of actor Cristian Bale in a ceremony officiated by Wilma Mankiller, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Bale died three years later of brain cancer.
In 2015, she was among 30 women from 15 countries who stationed themselves on both sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, linking arms with 10,000 Korean Women, in a demonstration for International Women’s Day for Disarmament.
Tomorrow, March 26: Viktor Frankl
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SDJW condensation of a Wikipedia article
Loved this article! I never knew what a magnificent woman she was and how she accomplished so much!