Writer, feminist, and social reformer, born in Toledo, Ohio, USA. After graduating from Smith College (1956), she went to India on a scholarship and stayed on to write newspaper articles and a guidebook. Determined to be a journalist, she returned to the USA and worked (195860) for the Independent Research Service (later revealed as secretly subsidized by the CIA). She went to New York City and began as a freelance writer, first attracting attention with her article, I Was a Playboy Bunny, an exposé based on her own undercover work in a New York City Playboy Club. She was soon publishing her articles and becoming something of a celebrity, often seen with male celebrities. She also began to write some television comedy material, and in 1968 was invited to write a column, The City Politic, for a new magazine called New York, thus beginning her career as a serious social commentator.
She also became affiliated with a radical women's group, the Redstockings, and published her first overtly feminist piece, After Black Power, Women's Liberation (1968). In 1971 she joined other prominent feminists in forming the National Women's Political Caucus and took the lead in launching Ms magazine (an insert in New York, Dec 1971, first independent issue in Jan 1972). About this time she began to come under fire from some feminists, in part because of her work with the Independent Research Service, in part because some questioned whether anyone so glamorous could be a serious feminist. But she continued on her own way, speaking out, lecturing widely, organizing various women's functions, and editing Ms until 1987. In 1986 she published Marilyn, a biographical study of Marilyn Monroe's life from a feminist perspective. She invited controversy once again with Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992) which seemed to some feminists to be a retreat from social action.
Early life
Gloria Marie Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio. Her Jewish-American father, Leo Steinem, was a traveling antiques dealer (with trailer and family in tow).
Education and early career
Steinem entered Smith College on scholarship in 1952, majoring in government studies and becoming politically active in Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign. Steinem then studied in India for two years, after which she returned to America, where she had difficulty finding a journalism position because males had hiring preference.
Political awakening and activism
After conducting a series of celebrity interviews, Steinem eventually got a political assignment covering George McGovern's presidential campaign, which led to a position in a New York magazine. She became politically active in the feminist movement, and the media seemed to appoint Steinem as a feminist leader of sorts. Steinem brought other notable feminists to the fore and toured the country with lawyer Florynce Rae ("Flo") Kennedy, and in 1971, cofounded the National Women's Political Caucus as well as the Women's Action Alliance. The magazine was bought by the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2001, and Steinem remains on the masthead as one of six founding editors and serves on the advisory board.
Steinem cofounded the Coalition of Labor Union Women in 1974, and participated in the National Conference of Women in Houston, Texas in 1977.
Later life
In the 1980s and 1990s, Steinem had to deal with a number of personal setbacks, including the diagnoses of breast cancer in 1986, and trigeminal neuralgia in 1994.
On September 3, 2000, at age 66, she married David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale. Steinem and Bale were married for only three years before he died of brain lymphoma on December 30, 2003, at age 62. In 2005, Steinem appeared in the documentary film, I Had an Abortion, by Jennifer Baumgardner and Gillian Aldrich. In the film, Steinem described the abortion she received as a young woman in London, where she lived briefly before studying in India. Steinem is also a member of Democratic Socialists of America, and an advisory board member of Women's Voices.
Canadian singer-songwriter David Usher penned a song entitled Love Will Save The Day, which includes sound bites from Steinem speeches.
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