Gloria Steinem Dies at 92

The story so far

As of September 3, 2026

Gloria Steinem, the pioneering feminist, journalist, and cofounder of Ms. magazine, has died at 92 at her home in New York City, surrounded by loved ones. Her death was announced in a post on Instagram by her foundation. No cause was given. She remained active late in life and had a forthcoming book titled An Unexpected Life.

What made Steinem central to modern American life is the way her work moved ideas into the mainstream. She co‑founded Ms. magazine in 1972, and its first issue sold 300,000 copies in eight days. Years earlier, a 1963 undercover exposé as a Playboy Bunny propelled her into national view. Over the decades she organized for reproductive freedom, equal pay, and political participation, helped build national advocacy groups, and in 2013 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The story now is about the scale and texture of her reach. Tributes describe a mentor who made time for one to one guidance, including Meghan Markle, who shared photos and recalled the bracelet motto Steinem repeated to her, “we are linked, not ranked.” Coverage is also surfacing the particulars of her private life that shaped connections across worlds, including her 2000 marriage to activist David Bale, which made her stepmother to four adult children, among them actor Christian Bale.

What is at stake is how the institutions and habits she created carry on without her. She kept hosting small‑group Talking Circles at her home late in life, signaling a belief that change starts in rooms where everyone is heard. A line of hers that endures — “We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters” — captures the cultural shift she pressed for, which now falls to the organizations, publications, and networks she built to keep advancing.