HealthGloria Steinem, Icon of Women's Liberation, Dies at 92Aired September 5, 2026 at 10:00 PM UTCWritten September 5, 2026 at 10:02 PM UTCRead the write-upThis storyTranscript · LOADING0:00The woman who gave a generation its language for equality is gone.0:04Gloria Steinem died Tuesday at her home in New York City.0:08She was 92.0:09Her representatives said she died peacefully, surrounded by people who loved her.0:13No cause of death was released, but she had been in declining health for some time.0:17The question now is how a movement remembers its architect, and how it reckons with0:21the parts of her legacy a younger generation has spent years challenging.0:24Born in Toledo in 1934, she found her pen before her politics.0:29In 1963, she went undercover at the New York Playboy Club and wrote a bunny's tale0:34for Show magazine, documenting low pay and brutal conditions.0:37By 1970, she was testifying for the Equal Rights Amendment.0:41In 1971, she co-founded Ms.0:43Magazine and that July helped build the National Women's Political Caucus alongside0:47Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm.0:50She sat for Meet the Press in 1972, and in 2013, Barack Obama gave her the0:55Presidential Medal of Freedom.0:57Her institutions outlived her.0:59Ms.0:59Magazine, The Ms.1:00Foundation, and the Women's Media Center she co-founded with Jane Fonda and Robin1:04Morgan, and her final work is still on its way.1:07A memoir called An Unexpected Life is scheduled for September 22nd.1:11But the most consequential tension in her legacy is one piece she wrote in 1998.1:15In March 1998, the New York Times ran her op-ed Feminists and the Clinton Question.1:20She argued that even if the allegations were true, they were passes, not harassment,1:24because Clinton took no for an answer, and that the Lewinsky relationship was1:28consensual.1:29She urged feminists not to demand his resignation while he remained essential on1:33reproductive rights.1:33Critics later called that the one-free grope theory.1:36In the Me Too era, younger activists argued the piece subordinated the women1:41involved to partisan and policy goals, and to a vision of feminism they saw as too1:45white, middle-class, and celebrity-centered.1:47Monica Lewinsky herself later wrote she was beginning to entertain the idea that1:51consent might be rendered moot.1:53Steinem did not hold the line.1:55In a 2017 Guardian interview, she said she would not write the same piece now.1:59telling the interviewer what you write in one decade you don't necessarily write in2:03the next, and that the danger in 1998 was stretching harassment law too far.2:08But she also said she was glad she wrote it then.2:10She often said she learned feminism largely from black women, and the tributes came2:14from everywhere.2:15Hillary Clinton called her one of the architects of the entire structure of women's2:19equality and an eternal signal fire.2:21Barack and Michelle Obama said she was larger than life and that generations of2:25women are walking taller because of her.2:27Me Too founder Tarana Burke mourned her as a giant and an institution builder.2:32One detail in initial coverage does not hold up.2:35Tarana Burke was widely reported citing 50,000 young women at a Los Angeles festival2:39as proof of Steinem's influence.2:41That festival was actually Olivia Rodrigo's Daisy Chainfields, held August 29th in2:45Irvine, California, with about 45,000 attendees and roughly $20 million raised for2:50women's organizations.2:51The point stands.2:52Her blueprint lives on among young activists.2:55The specific number does not.2:57Here's what's confirmed.2:58She died September 2nd at home at 92.3:01No official cause has been released, and the widely repeated festival figure was3:05wrong.3:05She had no biological children, she was survived by a chosen family.3:09Her memoir arrives in weeks, and the institutions she built and the movement they3:13anchor continue without her.3:15The questions a younger generation raised about her legacy remain open.3:18What's certain is the ARC, a reporter who went undercover in a bunny costume and3:22ended up shaping the national conversation about equality for five decades.Explore with HeyDexFollow via RSSThe shortThe short ↗