Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem, who exemplifies the Second Wave of American Feminism, began her career as a journalist writing under a man's name. She went on to co-found Ms., the first feminist periodical with a national readership. An advocacy journalist, she writes passionately about issues of women's empowerment and gender, racial and economic equality.
Courtesy of Sylvia Edwards, Longview Community College
In Brief
A leader of second-wave feminism, Gloria Steinem has worked tirelessly all her life as an advocate for change. Steinem identifies with Jewishness insofar as she considers herself to be an outsider and Jews to be the quintessential out-group. As a journalist during the 1960s, Steinem’s coverage of a public hearing on abortion was the turning point which propelled her towards the women’s movement. In 1969 she became a true spokesperson for the feminist movement, talking on campuses and at street rallies and explaining the shared origins of race and gender caste systems; Steinem mobilized a generation of women to advance the cause of women’s liberation. In 1971 she co-founded Ms. Magazine, the first feminist periodical with a national readership. Steinem has co-founded several organizations, published many books, and involved herself in numerous political campaigns.
Bibliography
Dow, Bonnie J. “After 1970: Second-Wave Feminism, Mediated Popular Memory, and Gloria Steinem.” In Watching Women’s Liberation, 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News, 168-200. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2014.
Gloria: In Her Own Words. Directed by Peter Kunhardt. HBO, 2011.
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem. New York: Ballantine Books, 1995.
Steinem, Gloria, Meenakshi Mukherjee and Ira Pande. “A Conversation with Gloria Steinem.” India International Centre Quarterly 34, no. 2 (Autumn 2007): 90-105.
Steinem, Gloria and Ruchira Gupta. “Trafficking Sex: Politics, Policy, Personhood: A Conversation with Gloria Steinem and Ruchira Gupta.” Meridians 12, no. 1 (2014): 172-200.
Thom, Mary. Inside Ms: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1997.
Tillet, Salamishah. “Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Gloria Steinem Still Matter.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society 42, no. 3 (Spring 2017): 790-792.