Gloria Steinem's graceful exit: A life and legacy of radical feminist who fought for women’s rights

What you need to know:

• Gloria Steinem, one of the most influential voices of radical feminism, leaves behind a legacy of challenging patriarchy, defending reproductive rights and demanding equality for women.
• From reproductive rights and marriage to race, gender and accessible feminist writing, Gloria Steinem spent decades challenging social norms and reshaping conversations about women’s freedom.

The death of Gloria Steinem on September 2, 2026, draws the curtains on one of the most visible and vocal radical feminists. Born onMarch 25, 1934, in Ohio, USA, Steinem wore many hats – feminist, journalist, detective and political activist.

Her radical mien emerged early when she secretly got an abortion in 1957 at the age of 22. Then, abortion was still illegal and the British physician who took the risk of referring her for the service had to entreat her to keep his name secret. She celebrated the abortion as the “the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life”, seeing it as an expression of freedom from the norm that reproduction is imperative. Her conviction about reproductive rights fortified in 1992 when she co-founded Choice USA, a lobby for reproductive choice.

Marriage as a patriarchal institution was one of her pet themes. Way back in 1962, she criticised how women were compelled to choose between career and marriage. In this regard, she foresaw a future in which heterosexuality would not define the family; unmarried women would “have the right to stay single without ridicule”; and non-binary individuals would “no longer be denied legally binding marriages, complete with mutual-support agreements and inheritance rights”.

In 1978, she wrote a semi-satirical but reflective essay “If Men Could Menstruate” for Cosmopolitan, capturing the notion that the world is seen from, and promoted, the male perspective. In this imaginary world, menstruation would become a badge of honour rather than of shame and stigma for women.

“There would be ceremonies to mark the onset of this envied beginning of manhood; men would brag about how long and how much; a National Institute of Dysmenorrhoea would spend millions on researching monthly discomforts; sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free; men would claim greater sexual powers, heightened intellectual skills and improved athletic abilities at their ‘time of the month’, (and) corporate consultants would charge double for greater intuitive powers in those sensitive days at the onset of their cycles.” This article later appeared in her seminal book Moving Beyond Words (1994) under the title “What If Freud Were Phyllis.”

In the same article, she debunks the notion of female inferiority and views the pervasive V symbol in jackets and the necktie worn by men as replicas of different aspects of the female sexual organ. In her view, female superiority lies in the fact that “only women could bleed without injury or death”, emerging from the monthly menses as the immortal phoenix.

Her counter-normative arguments stretch to perception of women’s biological dominance in “envelopment” of the male sexual organ during intercourse, as opposed to penetration, and recognition of the clitoris as the only bodily organ dedicated exclusively to sexual pleasure, unlike the penis which is both sexual and excretory.

Tackling the intersectionality of inequality, she said that “sex and race … have been the primary ways of organising human beings into superior and inferior groups”. She proposed an alternative ideology of humanism, defining it as “a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned” by which she ideated that people should be defined by merit.

She popularised the feminist slogan “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” which was coined by Irina Dunn, to put forward the radical idea that men were dispensable. But she was also critical of the pomposity, obscurantism and abstractions in feminist academic theory.

“Nobody cares about feminist academic writing”, she said. “That's careerism. These poor women in academia have to talk this silly language that nobody can understand in order to be accepted [...]. They have to say 'discourse', not 'talk'. Knowledge that is not accessible is not helpful. It becomes aerialised – and I think it's important that women's experiences be given a narrative." For her, clarity was paramount.

Because of her strong views on marriage as a form of patriarchal enslavement for women, many people were surprised when she got married on September 3, 2000, at the age of 66, to David Bale. Her critics interpreted this to be a surrender to male hegemony.

But for her, it was because laws had changed to make marriage an institution of equality rather than subordination. For instance, she would not have to give up anything, such as her name, because of it. The sceptics forgot that Steinem had had other relationships before, albeit non-marital. Some fellow feminists also claimed that she appropriated feminism for personal gratification.

Be that as it may, The New York Times summed her up as the "personification of the women's movement". She leaves behind a major lesson on creating change: tenacity.

The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).