Gloria Steinem dies at 92

Gloria Steinem, the journalist and feminist icon who spent seven decades campaigning for women’s equality, died on Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 92.

Her death was announced on her Instagram page, which described her passing as peaceful and surrounded by loved ones. Steinem’s cause of death was not disclosed. A co-founder of Ms. magazine and a leader of the women’s liberation movement, Steinem became the public face of American feminism from the 1960s onward. She used her platform to challenge laws, workplaces and cultural norms that kept women from full participation in society.

Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934 and graduated from Smith College in 1956. After studying in India on a fellowship, she returned to the U.S. and briefly worked with a CIA-backed student group that promoted pro-American ideas abroad. She later said the CIA never influenced the group’s policies and defended her involvement. In the 1960s she broke into journalism at a time when most editors assumed women belonged on the society pages. Her 1963 undercover article for Show magazine, “A Bunny’s Tale,” exposed the exploitation of Playboy Club bunnies and became a landmark investigation.

She helped launch Ms. magazine in 1972, giving a national voice to feminist issues such as abortion rights, workplace discrimination and domestic violence. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling her a leader “who changed how women thought about themselves.” Steinem continued speaking and organizing into her ninth decade, arguing that equality remained unfinished. Her death leaves a vast gap in American public life and in the movement she helped define.