Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem is perhaps the nation’s most famous feminist activist after half a century fighting for women’s rights.

As a journalist at New York magazine, she launched her national profile with the 1969 piece “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation.” 

She appeared before Congress in 1970 to advocate for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, co-founded Ms. magazine, which debuted in 1971, and helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus the same year. In the 1980s, she protested apartheid. In the 1990s, she co-founded the reproductive rights group Choice USA. She was a keynote speaker at the Women’s March in 2017.

She has also attracted her share of controversy, particularly over her work with the CIA-funded Independent Research Service and more recently by signing on to a letter denouncing “cancel culture.”

Steinem’s life has gotten the Hollywood treatment in recent years. She was portrayed by Rose Byrne in the FX series “Mrs. America,” and she is the subject of a biopic starring Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander titled “The Glorias,” which debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

— Brett Samuels

photo: Getty Images