NEW YORK, United States — Gloria Steinem, the journalist and organiser who became a prominent figure in the American women’s rights movement, died at her New York City home on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. She was 92.
Steinem died peacefully with loved ones beside her, according to an announcement posted by her foundation on Instagram. The statement did not identify a cause.
“Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end,” the statement said.
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Her foundation said Steinem had spent her final years writing and gathering with others.
It asked those wishing to honour her to light a candle or contribute to Gloria’s Foundation instead of sending flowers.
From Journalism to Activism
Steinem began her professional life in journalism before becoming one of the country’s most recognisable advocates for women’s equality.
She helped establish Ms. Magazine and travelled extensively to address students, community groups, rallies and marches.
A 1963 assignment took her inside a club operated by Hugh Hefner’s Playboy business, where she worked undercover as a Playboy Bunny and reported on the treatment of its female employees.
Steinem later said the article made it difficult for her to escape association with the culture she had examined.
Her direction changed six years later after she attended a public meeting where women spoke about abortion rights.
Steinem, who had obtained an illegal abortion when she was 22, subsequently made reproductive freedom a central part of her activism.
“That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me,” she told The Associated Press in 2022, as she reflected on the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
“Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy,” she said.
Steinem returned to that experience in her 2015 memoir, My Life on the Road, which she dedicated to Dr John Sharpe, the London physician who referred her for an abortion in 1957.
The procedure was then illegal except when considered necessary for a woman’s health.
Work During the Cold War
Before her prominence as a journalist and activist, Steinem directed the Independent Research Service, an educational foundation that received most of its financing from the Central Intelligence Agency.
The organisation arranged for American students to attend international festivals supported by the Soviet Union during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
After Ramparts magazine disclosed the CIA’s covert support for such organisations in 1967, Steinem acknowledged that she had known where the foundation’s financing originated.
She said most of the participating students had not known about the connection and maintained that the agency did not attempt to dictate the organisation’s policies.
She continued to defend that work after it attracted criticism.
Recognition and Family
President Barack Obama presented Steinem with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
At the ceremony, Obama credited her work with producing “lasting political and social change in America and abroad.”
He said Steinem had helped draw public attention to domestic violence, employment discrimination and the shortage of affordable childcare.
Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934, to Leo and Ruth Steinem.
She and her older sister, Susanne, travelled around the country during their childhood because of their father’s work as an antiques salesman.
In 2000, Steinem married David Bale, an entrepreneur and activist, in Oklahoma. Their marriage lasted until Bale died from brain lymphoma in 2003.
Steinem had no biological children and became stepmother to his four children, among them the actor Christian Bale.
Political Leaders and Friends Pay Tribute
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, said Steinem had “pushed open doors not just for herself, but for literally millions of women behind her.”
Clinton said Steinem’s advocacy influenced her own political development and helped create opportunities for women in public life, sport and the judiciary. She described Steinem’s activism as grounded in optimism.
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Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, remembered Steinem as a friend and mentor. She said they had worked together to encourage young people to vote and had discussed ways to promote equality.
The duchess also recalled Steinem’s private friendship with her family, saying she was “grateful to know that in these last few weeks and days she knew exactly how loved and admired she was.”
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Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said he was heartbroken by the death of a friend who had continued advocating for equality across several decades.
Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, described Steinem as “a fearless trailblazer who transformed the fight for equality in America and inspired generations of women to know their power.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Steinem had changed the possibilities available to women, while Julie Menin, the speaker of the New York City Council, credited her with advancing women’s participation and leadership.
Tributes also came from Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, and the journalist Christiane Amanpour.
Gloria Steinem will go down in history as one of the most important activists of all time, leading a movement for the equality of half the world: its women.
She lived a long and passionate life dedicated to this vital and basic cause.
She did it with intellectual precision,…
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) September 3, 2026
Callamard said Steinem’s death was an occasion to remember her work and consider continuing challenges to women’s equality.
Amanpour said Steinem had devoted her life to securing equal treatment for women.
