Celebrated as one of the godmothers of the modern women’s liberation movement alongside reconstructionist Betty Friedan, feminist, journalist, political activist, and equality exponent Gloria Steinem (born March 25, 1934) has spent more than half a century campaigning tenaciously against a range of gender discrimination laws, championing equal treatment for men and women, and advocating for women’s reproductive rights.
A co-founder of iconic feminist magazine Ms., the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women, Steinem has been actively involved in a number of organizations promoting social reform that levels opportunities for the sexes, most recently co-founding the Women’s Media Center alongside Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan with the aim of amplifying women’s voices in a severely skewed media landscape.
With her lectures and magazine articles, Steinem has been tirelessly claiming feminism back from the grip of pontifical academic “discourse” – a word she came to particularly detest for its pedantic pretense – consistently reeling the conversation back into the real, living, public dream of a common language (to borrow from Adrienne Rich’s eloquence) where it belongs.
“The meaning of feminism hasn’t changed, but it’s deepened,” Steinem poignantly observed– a remark at once timeless and timelier than ever.
