Gloria Steinem Lifted up Women Everywhere |
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Feminist activist Gloria Steinem has died aged 92.
Known almost as much for her trademark mid-parted hair and large aviator sunglasses as for her acute intelligence, courage and wit, she will long be known for setting feminist torches alight globally over her six-decade career as a journalist, activist and feminist icon.
Growing up too quickly
Steinem has always been candid about the impact her early life had on the decisions she later made.
Ten years after she was born in Toledo, Ohio (March 25 1934), her parents divorced. Following the departure of her travelling salesman father, young Gloria was left taking care of her mentally ill mother until she graduated from high school and her sister took over.
Years later she reflected that she “became a grown-up too early, from ten to 17, a small person responsible for a big person”.
Rejecting marriage, she said she did not want to end up taking care of someone else (although much later, in 2000 at the age of 66, she did marry entrepreneur and activist David Bale, who died of lymphoma four years later).
Studying government at Smith College, Massachusetts, she graduated with distinction, then spent two years studying and researching in India thanks to a Charles Bowles Fellowship, an experience she credited with inspiring her interest in grassroots activism.
Toe to toe with Hugh Hefner
Like many female journalists starting out in the 1950s and 60s, Steinem’s initial assignments were limited to “women’s pages”. These typically reported on “women’s issues”, such as health and fashion.
When she suggested writing political stories to her editor at The New York Times Sunday Magazine, he “just said something like, ‘I don’t think of you that way’”.
She came to national attention as a journalist in 1963 with her expose, I Was a Playboy Bunny, based on the 11 days she worked undercover at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club.
Although she........