Steinem Born: Feminism's Most Visible Voice

Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny in 1963 and wrote an expose that made her famous and furious. The piece documented the low pay, invasive physical examinations, and demeaning working conditions at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Club, and it established Steinem as a journalist willing to put herself inside the story. Born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem would spend the next six decades redefining feminism for mainstream America. Her childhood was unstable. Her father was an itinerant antiques dealer, and her mother suffered from severe anxiety and depression that left Steinem as a caretaker from a young age. She attended Smith College, traveled to India on a fellowship, and began freelance writing in New York. The Playboy Bunny piece got her attention, but she initially struggled against editors who wanted her to write about fashion and celebrities rather than politics. The 1969 abortion hearings in New York changed her trajectory. Steinem covered the hearings, then spoke publicly about her own abortion for the first time. She co-founded Ms. Magazine in 1972, creating the first mainstream feminist publication in America. The first issue sold out its entire 300,000-copy print run in eight days. Steinem became the most recognized face of the women's movement alongside Betty Friedan, though the two clashed frequently over tactics and ideology. Her influence extended well beyond publishing. She co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus with Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm, and she campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment throughout the 1970s. At 66, she married for the first time, to David Bale (father of actor Christian Bale), a decision she framed not as a reversal of her views on marriage but as proof that feminism was about choice rather than rigid rules.