Gloria Steinem, Feminist Icon, Dies at 92

Gloria Steinem, the journalist, activist, and organizer who became a prominent figure in the U.S. women's movement, died Wednesday at 92. Steinem resisted being cast as the singular face of feminism, but for six decades she carried its ideas into mainstream America across its second and third waves.

Steinem made the personal political: an illegal abortion at 22 preceded decades of fighting first to legalize abortion and then to defend that right. She first drew national attention as a journalist in 1963 when she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny and exposed the job's low pay and sexist treatment. Soon, she was both chronicling feminism's emerging second wave and organizing within it.

Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, bringing feminist arguments about work, sex, politics, family, and reproductive rights to a mass audience. She also helped found the National Women's Political Caucus and took her fight to Congress, testifying for the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970, and to the American people, campaigning for its ratification. According to a statement from her Instagram accounts, Steinem's greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard.

Her final memoir, 'An Unexpected Life,' is expected to publish later this month. Her New York brownstone is also intended to remain a gathering place for social justice movements.