Julie Burton, the president and CEO of the Women’s Media Center, recalled: Gloria once wrote a letter to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe v. Wade decision, thanking him for saving more women’s lives than anyone in US history. We could say the same about Gloria’s impact on women’s lives, because for decades she was at the forefront of the struggle for political and social equality and justice for women. She used her voice and writing to raise visibility for women and the issues of our time. We came to take it for granted that she would always be where she was most needed—at the podium, on TV, on the plane, on the phone, or at the computer—to make the ideal of social justice a reality. Her phrases have become mottoes of our time.

In 2005, she, Steinem and Jane Fonda launched the Women’s Media Center, which has a mission to support “the visibility, viability and decision-making power of women and girls in media.” More recently, she hosted a syndicated radio show and remained active despite being diagnosed 16 years ago with Parkinson’s disease, which inspired several poems and a TEDWomen talk in 2015.

Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand have led tributes to the late Gloria Steinem.
The trailblazing feminist activist died at her home in New York City on Wednesday. She was 92.

Host Indira Lakshmanan sits down with activist and author Soraya Chemaly to reflect on Gloria Steinem's impact on the feminist movement.

“Gloria was very interested in intergenerational connection,” Soraya Chemaly, author of “All We Want is Everything” and board member of the Women’s Media Center, tells me. “She listened to young women who sat in her living room, never talking down to them, always validating,” says Chemaly, who estimates that she was a guest in Steinem’s living room nearly a dozen times. “She built community and solidarity in a low-key and comfortable space.”

Steinem, a leader of second-wave feminism, co-founded the feminist Ms. magazine in the early 1970s. She helped create the Women’s Media Center, which its website says is designed to raise the “visibility, viability and decision-making power of women and girls in media,” alongside Jane Fonda and writer Robin Morgan in 2005.

Recognizing that true change requires both political power and cultural representation, Steinem co-founded vital organizations including the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Women’s Action Alliance, and the Women’s Media Center. She also co-founded Ms. magazine in 1972 and shattered many media glass ceilings by creating a dedicated space for feminist journalism. What many do not realize is that Steinem and the Ms. collective eventually hired former ESSENCE editor-in-chief Marcia Ann Gillespie as the editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine in 1993.

The two-time Emmy nominee and onetime journalist co-founded Ms. magazine and the Women's Media Center.

Among groups Steinem co-founded were the Women’s Action Alliance, which was active through the 1990s; the Women’s Media Center in 2004, the Voters for Choice political action committee in 1977, and the Ms. Foundation for Women. She also helped establish the Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

In addition to cofounding the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Free to Be Foundation, she was also part of spearheading the Women's Media Center, a nonprofit focused on boosting stories of women and underrepresented stories in the media. Women's Media Center President and CEO Julie Burton highlighted Steinem's impact in a statement following her death. "She used her voice and writing to raise visibility for women and the issues of our time. We came to take it for granted that she would always be where she was most needed — at the podium, on TV, on the plane, on the phone, or at the computer — to make the ideal of social justice a reality," Burton said, according to the press release.

Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem at the WMC 2024 Women’s Media Awards.

Dr. Janet Dewart Bell, board chair of the Women's Media Center, reflect on Steinem’s extraordinary legacy, her groundbreaking journalism—including an undercover Playboy Bunny exposé—and what it means to carry her work forward.

Gloria Steinem, the feminist crusader who galvanized the modern women’s movement, helping millions of women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at home, at work and in society at large, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 92.

Chris Hayes honors Gloria Steinem, including an interview with Women's Media Center's cofounders Gloria, Robin and Jane.