Steinem, Gloria (1934—)

Best-known leader and speaker for the feminist movement during the 1970s who was a founder and editor of Ms. magazine, as well as a co-founder of the Ms. Foundation, Women's Action Alliance, and Women's Political Caucus. Pronunciation: STY-nem. Born Gloria Marie Steinem on March 25, 1934, at Clark Lake, Michigan; second daughter of Leo Steinem (an antique dealer during the winter and owner-manager of a resort entertainment hall during the summer) and Ruth (Nuneviller) Steinem (briefly a reporter for the Toledo Blade); attended Toledo High School, 1949–51, Western High School in Washington, D.C., 1951–52, and Smith College, 1952–56, granted a B.A.; member Phi Beta Kappa; married David Bale (an entrepreneur and political activist), on September 3, 2000; no children.

Spent earliest summers in Clark Lake, Michigan, and winters traveling with family; moved to Toledo, Ohio (1944); family broke up (1945); graduated high school (1952); graduated college (1956); spent a year in India (1956–57); obtained first job in publishing (1960); earned first byline, Esquire magazine (1962); briefly became an undercover Playboy bunny (1963); served as staff writer for New York magazine (1968–72); won Penney-Missouri Journalism Award (1969); served as editor of Ms. magazine (1972–88); operated on for breast cancer (1986); left Ms. to write several books (1988); worked as freelance writer and speaker (1988—).

Selected writings:

A Thousand Indias, a guide book of India (1957); The Beach Book (1963); "After Black Power, Women's Liberation," award-winning article on the women's movement, for New York magazine (1969); Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983); Marilyn (1986); Revolution from Within (1992); Moving Beyond Words (1994).

In the mid-1970s, the decade when the feminist movement was at the height of its power, Gloria Steinem was also at the height of her career. Always sensitive to issues of fairness and equality, Steinem had taken up the cause of women's liberation in 1969. By that time, she was already well known for her interviews with the elegant and chic personalities of New York and Washington, and had been described by Newsday as the "World's Most Beautiful Byline." Steinem's regular column, "The City Politic," which appeared weekly in New York magazine, made her name recognizable to thousands of readers. But feminism was the issue that became her natural element: the perfect realm for the young journalist.

The door to feminism was opened to Gloria Steinem in late March 1969, at a time when legislative hearings on abortion laws were being held in New York State. That night, armed with her press pass, she was allowed entry into a meeting in favor of legalizing elective abortion sponsored by a radical-left women's group called Redstockings. As she listened to women tell of their personal sufferings and difficulties obtaining abortions, Steinem was forced to remember her own experience. At age 22, alone in England, she was faced with the choice of giving up her dreams and plans or risking her life with a strange doctor. Steinem had chosen to have an abortion and never discussed her decision with anyone. Now, in this church basement, she began to identify with the problems these women had, and to see them differently than she ever had before. It was not only the inability to control their own bodies that created problems for women, Steinem realized, but society's refusal to value women equally with men. "I finally understood," she would later write, "why I identify with 'out' groups. I belong to one, too."

After the 1969 abortion hearings, Steinem would begin researching the women's movement. The result was an award-winning essay, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation," which appeared in New York magazine. It was one of the first articles on the new feminist movement to appear in a major publication and launched Steinem on her career as a feminist. A year later, in 1970, thousands of onlookers recognized Steinem's smiling face in the front row of marchers during the Women's Strike for Equality rally in New York City.

Gloria Marie Steinem was born on March 24, 1934, in a small resort town in Michigan called Clark Lake. She grew up wandering around Ocean Beach Pier, the entertainment center that her father Leo owned and managed every summer. During the winter, when the pier was closed, Leo filled a dome-topped trailer with their belongings, and he and Ruth Steinem and their two daughters—Gloria and Suzanne Steinem —headed west or south, where the weather was warmer. Leo would buy and sell antiques to make a living until the Michigan summer began and the entertainment pier reopened.

All this traveling prevented Steinem from attending school and making friends her own age. Instead, her earliest memories centered around the summers and the kindness of the entertainers who worked there. She remembered feeling protected by her father, but there were few memories of her mother. Her most vivid recollection from that period was in 1944 when the Ocean Beach Pier closed down and the family broke up.

Ruth Steinem had serious psychological problems and was not capable of running a household alone. She was often heavily medicated and sometimes completely non-functional. With Leo traveling and Suzanne away at college, Gloria, then only nine years old, would be alone with Ruth. The family understood the impossibility of such a situation. Their solution was for Gloria and her mother to move to Northampton, Massachusetts, near Smith College, where Suzanne was in her third year.

Ruth seemed better in the intimate, supportive atmosphere of a small town. When the school year ended and Suzanne left for New York City and a summer job, however, Ruth and Gloria followed; again, Ruth became severely depressed. At the end of the summer of 1945, with Suzanne back at Smith College, Ruth and Gloria returned to Toledo and moved into the house on Woodville Road that had once belonged to Ruth's parents. Gloria, now almost 11 years old, somehow managed to care for herself and her mother, attend school, and even have some good times. Dancing lessons, acting in plays, Saturday movies and trips to the library, combined with a rich fantasy life, kept her going during those difficult years. Sometimes, Ruth felt better and functioned normally.

Mother and daughter maintained themselves on rents received from Ruth's property at Clark Lake and from the other two apartments in the Toledo house where they lived. Occasionally, there were visits from Leo. Although his financial situation remained precarious and he was not in a position to change his daughter's life very much, Gloria always loved him and felt he loved her. When she was old enough, she took a part-time job, but it was not enough to lift them out of poverty. Eventually, the house fell into disrepair and became virtually unlivable; the tenants were gone and there was no

heat. This crisis precipitated another family decision and another move.

Steinem's first relief from the burden of caring for her mother in the deteriorating house came in 1951. That year, the church next door offered to buy the property. Suzanne saw this as an opportunity for her younger sister. Gloria would spend her senior year of high school living with Sue in Washington, D.C.; the money from the sale of the house would be put aside for Steinem's college tuition, and Leo would take care of Ruth. The only problem was convincing their father to agree.

Leo and Ruth had been divorced for several years, and at first he adamantly refused. Then, seeing Gloria's tears, Leo changed his mind and the plan was put into effect. It was Steinem's first and only carefree year in high school. When it ended, she was accepted at Smith College, from which Suzanne had graduated in 1946.

But Leo Steinem had agreed to take care of Ruth for only one year. With the end of the interval, Ruth, still suffering from severe depression, was sent to Washington, D.C., and placed in the care of Suzanne. During Gloria's first year at college, the sisters made the decision to hospitalize their mother in a private facility where she remained for several years. When Ruth was released, she was able to live independently.

Steinem loved college. Although she had not been a scholastic star in high school, by the time she was ready to graduate from Smith, she was in Phi Beta Kappa, had been selected for honors in government, her major, and was elected class historian. She had also accepted an engagement ring from her current beau but backed out when she received a fellowship to study in India for a year.

Before going to India, Steinem traveled to England where she stayed with a married friend in London and worked to save money for her trip. It was there that she realized she was pregnant with her ex-fiancé's child and faced the possibility of giving up her fellowship in India and returning to New York to marry. Then chance intervened. She overheard a conversation at a party and discovered that although they were technically illegal, abortions were possible in England with the consent of two physicians.

Steinem summoned her courage and shared her dilemma with the doctor who had first diagnosed her condition. He agreed to help, and when she boarded the plane for her flight to India, Steinem was no longer pregnant. No one but Steinem and her doctor ever knew of this incident in her life until the fight to legalize abortion began. In the early 1970s, she publicly announced that she was one of the thousands of women who had had illegal abortions.

Steinem's year in India was successful. She learned many things about herself and about this newly independent country and became a social activist. When she returned to the United States, she published her first book, A Thousand Indias. It was a travel guide to India, a project she had undertaken before she left.

Immediately after her return, Steinem enjoyed a brief time as a celebrity among those who knew her. She spoke at Smith College, wrote of her experiences, and was interviewed by the Toledo Blade, her hometown paper. Soon enough, however, the excitement passed, and Steinem began looking for work. Her goal was to find a job as a political writer, but this was not a realistic expectation for a woman in 1958. Instead, she worked for an association called Independent Service for Information, a Massachusetts-based group which educated and encouraged students to go abroad to Communist Youth Festivals to present the case for democracy. Although one of her tasks was to write educational material, it was not the kind of writing she sought. After two years, she broke into the publishing world with a job at a new magazine called Help! For Tired Minds. Help!'s editor was Harvey Kurtzman, previously a founder of the successful Mad Magazine. Although Help! was never a major publishing success, working for Kurtzman improved Steinem's journalism skills. One of her assignments was to contact wellknown television and film actors and convince them to be on the magazine's cover. She generally got what she wanted.

Gloria Steinem's ability to deal with people had brought her continued success throughout her childhood, and it did not fail her now. The young assistant was well liked. She was invited to parties and offered a string of opportunities. In addition to becoming familiar with the world of show business, she was introduced by Kurtzman to the publishing world, and met many of the prominent people involved in it, including Bob Benton, art director at Esquire magazine, one of the men whom Steinem loved and almost married.

Through Benton, Steinem became acquainted with the staff at Esquire and began to write for the magazine. Her first byline appeared in Esquire's special college issue, an idea that she had proposed and sold to them. Her own article in that issue spoke about "the woman who does not feel forced to choose between a career and marriage, and is therefore free to find fulfillment in a combination of the two." Her article appeared in 1962, preceding by one year Betty Friedan 's book The Feminine Mystique. At just about the same time, she withdrew from a commitment to marry Benton. The two remained friends, but their romantic relationship ended.

Steinem's career advanced in the 1960s. Her freelance work initially augmented her job at Help!, then replaced it. She moved into a larger apartment in New York City and had more assignments than she could handle. One of the most outstanding of these was an undercover project from Show magazine. Show wanted her to get a job as a "Playboy bunny" at the famed Playboy Club in New York City, and report on what it was like to work there. Because she was young and attractive, Steinem was able to get a position and worked there for one week. Playboy bunnies, in actuality waitresses at the club's restaurant, had to wear scanty costumes, along with bunny ears and a fluffy tail, designed to show off their bodies and amuse and attract the male customers. Steinem found the work degrading and physically difficult. Her article for Show, "A Bunny's Tale: Show's First Exposé for Intelligent People," appeared in the May and June issues of 1963.

Her experience with the Playboy Club sensitized Steinem to feminist issues, but there was as yet no movement to help her put them into perspective. During the 1960s, she took on many assignments that, with the benefit of hindsight, she might never have accepted. Among them was an agreement to pose as the Glamour girl for the February 1964 issue of Glamour magazine. Another was an arrangement to be photographed having her hair cut by the famous hairdresser Vidal Sassoon of London. Steinem had always enjoyed and profited from her good looks as well as her pleasant personality. After feminism helped change her perspective, she consistently refused to acknowledge her attractive appearance or discuss its advantages in her life. However, in the decade of the 1960s, she made good use of her appealing image, and it was an important factor in advancing her career.

Through journalism, Steinem made her way into the world of celebrities. She wrote for The New York Times Magazine, McCall's, and the Ladies' Home Journal. In 1963, she published a frothy book for Viking Press called The Beach Book, and gained a year's experience as a comedy writer for the popular television show "That Was the Week That Was." Gloria credited her father for her good sense of humor. Leo had died in a car accident in California a few years earlier, an event that considerably saddened Steinem, and in spite of his obvious parental failures, she always remembered him fondly.

By the mid-1960s, Steinem had become a celebrity. In addition to interviewing the rich and famous, she herself was being interviewed for newspapers and television shows. This development undoubtedly increased her confidence as well as her credibility and led her into a new area: politics and political writing. She first integrated her writing career with her political interests when she began to write about and actively support Senator George McGovern in his first bid for the presidency. Shortly afterward, she joined forces with Clay Felker, editor at Esquire, when he began publishing New York magazine. Steinem was an editor for the new weekly magazine and also wrote a political column, "The City Politic." From the appearance of New York's first edition in July 1968, Steinem no longer wrote interviews of budding thespians or pieces on fashion. Instead, she wrote about Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, and Cesar Chavez, union leader and organizer of the California grape boycott. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, she covered the Harlem riots and then the tumultuous Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Steinem was becoming more and more politically sensitized and aware, ready for her initiation into the newest revolution which was sweeping across the country: women's liberation.

The 1969 abortion hearings in New York were the catalyst. Steinem began to read about the new feminist philosophy and to view her own life—and her mother's—in light of what she was learning. Her award-winning article on the topic, and her participation in the Women's Strike for Equality March, catapulted her further into the thick of the movement. She began to understand and then to proselytize.

Steinem, naturally outgoing and friendly, was strangely shy addressing large crowds, and she was a nervous speaker when she first began appearing before audiences. Eventually, her positive experiences, coupled with the encouragement of the other women who shared the podium with her, helped her to overcome her dread of the speaker's platform. Ultimately, it became more important to her to convince people of her ideas than to worry about her own feelings. Steinem told biographers: "I saw a whole population of women who desperately wanted information."

Those speaking engagements taught Steinem a great deal about women and their problems. It was the questions directed to her from her audiences which first motivated Steinem to organize the Women's Action Alliance. The Alliance developed educational programs and services to assist women and women's organizations, and supported worthwhile projects that offered practical help to women. Among the ideas which surfaced from the women involved in the Action Alliance was a national magazine. That idea eventually became a reality when the premiere issue of Ms. appeared in 1972.

The first feminist women's magazine was an instant success, and Gloria Steinem left New York magazine and became editor of Ms. She remained at that job for 16 years. In addition to helping form the magazine's policies and contributing to each issue, Steinem also became heavily involved in all aspects of the new women's movement. As a co-founder of the Women's Political Caucus, organized in 1971, Steinem became politically active. Despite her long-term support for George McGovern, she was a delegate for Shirley Chisholm who ran against McGovern for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1971. In an article for Look magazine, Steinem explained her support for Chisholm. A woman presidential candidate would help make voters aware of the needs of minority groups and women. If a woman ran and were elected, people would not "go on supposing the current social order reflects some natural order."

We now have words like "sexual harassment," "displaced homemaker," and "battered woman." Ten years ago, it was just called life.

—Gloria Steinem

Steinem knew Chisholm would lose the bid for the nomination, and she did, but through their work, Steinem and her colleagues in the Women's Political Caucus were introduced to politics and political action. After McGovern won the nomination, the women supported Frances "Sissy" Farenthold of Texas as a nominee for vice president. She came in second, losing to Thomas Eagleton. Most important, the Caucus worked for a women's platform at the convention and succeeded in getting almost all their planks accepted by the delegates as part of the party's policy. The one exception was the women's stand on reproductive rights.

A vital part of the feminist movement in the early 1970s was changing language, and Steinem was a major force behind such changes. It was she who coined the expression "reproductive rights" and pointed out that "battered woman" and "sexual harassment" were new terms for old ideas. "Ten years ago," she reminded her audiences, "it was just called life."

When the U.S. Congress voted to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1972, the women's movement, with the National Organization for Women (NOW) in the forefront, launched a campaign to help ratify it in a majority of the states. Although Gloria Steinem never joined NOW, she was heavily involved in this struggle and was a visible presence in many cities where battles for the ERA were being waged. She became one of the most well-known speakers for the feminist movement and, during the decade of the 1970s, appeared on the covers of four major magazines. Her long blonde hair falling loose over her shoulders, her stylish aviator glasses, the blue jeans and leotard that she always wore, was a look that was emulated by other women, both feminists and non-feminists. Steinem became the recognized symbol of the women's movement.

Shortly after the establishment of Ms., Steinem helped to establish the Ms. Foundation which granted money to support grassroots, self-help projects of women's groups and individual women. One of the foundation's most successful undertakings was the children's television show "Free To Be You and Me," directed by Marlo Thomas . An award-winning show, it was later adapted as both a book and a record, then converted into a video. The gist of "Free To Be You and Me" was that children should be allowed to develop more freely, without having gender stereotypes imposed on them.

Less than two years later, in 1974, Steinem added another organization to the list of groups she had helped to form. This one, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, was committed to helping working women whose unions were not supportive enough, or who wanted to organize new ones. She saw this group as having the potential to fight for an end to job discrimination against women.

The year 1974 was also the year Gloria Steinem turned 40. She proudly announced her age, saying: "This is what 40 looks like. We've been lying for so long, who would know?" Even at the height of her busy career as a journalist and feminist, and despite her oft-quoted "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," she was rarely without a significant man in her life. In the early 1970s, it was Franklin Thomas, head of the Ford Foundation and a civil-rights activist. Because he was an African-American, Steinem found Frank especially sympathetic to women's problems. He understood what being treated like a stereotype was like, she believed. Despite their closeness and love, this relationship, too, ended without a commitment to marriage, and Steinem finally admitted to herself that she did not want to marry anyone. Frequently asked why she remained single and childless, her standard response was "I can't mate in captivity."

Gloria and Frank remained friends but Steinem moved on. Shortly before her 40th birthday, she met Stan Pottinger, a lawyer who headed the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and was also strongly committed to the feminist cause. Although he lived in Washington, D.C., and Steinem lived in New York, the two spent many weekends together. Stan and his children became an important part of her life for the next eight years, but marriage, at least then, was not contemplated.

Steinem's life was filled with commitments to causes, travel, and writing. Added to those activities was the need to fend off many attacks, both personal and political, which emanated from a variety of sources during the decade of the 1970s. The most serious of these was the accusation, leveled against her by the radical-feminist group Redstockings, that she had once been affiliated with the CIA. This charge stemmed from the fact that funding for the Independent Service organization, her first employer, was partially provided by CIA money. The charge quickly deteriorated into a personal attack. Other challenges, including ongoing disagreements with Betty Friedan, continued to haunt her well into the 1980s.

Steinem was not appointed an official delegate, but she did attend the international conference in Mexico City marking the opening of the United Nations' Decade of Women in 1975. She also worked hard to help organize the American Conference on Women which took place in Houston, Texas, in 1977. Although the Houston conference was not politically successful, Steinem was pleased with it. She felt that even though none of their resolutions had been adopted by the U.S. Congress, the women who attended had met new allies, learned new skills and gained a deeper commitment to continue the fight for the ERA.

Shortly after her return from Houston, Steinem left for Washington, D.C. As the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson fellowship, she planned to spend one year researching and writing her long-overdue book. Although this was her priority, she still devoted a good deal of time to Ms. and to speaking for the ERA, trying to ward off the growing opposition which threatened its chances for ratification. With the 1979 deadline for passage coming closer, and only three more states needed to make the Equal Rights Amendment a reality, women made one final effort and failed. The tide in the country was turning. The next step was convincing Congress to agree to an extension. A major march on Washington was organized for July 9, 1978. Steinem marched along with 100,000 others, and the ERA was granted a new deadline: June 30, 1982.

With a few more years of leeway, and her Woodrow Wilson fellowship at an end, Steinem returned to New York and continued her busy life, writing, speaking and raising funds for Ms. Together with Harriet Lyons and Susanne Braun Levine , editors and co-workers at Ms., Steinem shared in compiling The Decade of Women. The book, partially the result of her year of research, was filled with photographs and information about women's accomplishments and setbacks over the last ten years; it won the Women in Communications Clarion Award for 1980.

The 1980s started auspiciously but quickly deteriorated for Steinem. In 1981, her mother died. Ruth Steinem had been living independently and had even managed to come to several of her daughter's speaking engagements before her final illness. Shortly after Ruth's death, Steinem wrote a moving essay about her mother, in which she noted, "I miss her; but no more in death than I did in life." The social changes which would have enabled Ruth Steinem to live a full life and achieve her potential had come 20 years too late.

The following year, 1982, saw the final blow to the Equal Rights Amendment. With Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican, in the White House, the country had turned away from its commitment to equal rights for women. Ms. celebrated its tenth birthday in a somber mood, and Steinem, trying to make the best of this disappointment, said: "I am angry but not disheartened…. There is not a city or town without a women's center or a battered-wives hot line."

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Steinem's long-awaited book of essays on feminism, was finally published in 1983. Her friend Letty Cottin Pogrebin had helped her organize and edit it, and urged her to send it to a publisher. Although many considered the book itself to be outrageous, even revolutionary, it was an instant success. "Feminists are always thought of as radical," Steinem said. "The truth is we're sweetly reasonable. It's the system that is radically wrong."

Returning from a major publicity tour, Steinem and her friends prepared to celebrate her 50th birthday. The party was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, with guests including celebrities from the worlds of politics, show business, publishing, and the women's movement. Though a high point of Steinem's life, it marked the beginning of a decline for both the feminist movement and her spectacular career. It also marked the beginning of a new love affair with millionaire publisher and real-estate magnate Mort Zuckerman, who attended that 50th birthday party.

For too many years, Steinem had been struggling to keep Ms. afloat without ever reducing her other activities. Every week she was on a plane to fulfill another commitment to speak, to promote a book, or to negotiate with potential advertisers for Ms. Criticism from both outside and within the women's movement had also taken its toll. After repeated urging from her friends, Steinem began seeing a therapist. She also began a romance with Zuckerman that in later years she realized had been a big mistake.

Zuckerman and Steinem were as unlike as two people could be. He was part of the world of big business and high society, while she remained in the feminist world, concerned with the underprivileged, ready to take on what she saw as "rescue work" whenever someone needed it. They did have a few things in common, however, for neither had ever married and both saw themselves as neglected children. Zuckerman was attracted to Steinem and thought he could help the failing magazine she was working so hard to save. Steinem, on her part, enjoyed the pampering she received from Zuckerman, whose limousine and beautiful weekend retreat in Easthampton were always available to her. At that low point, she felt she needed this kind of nurturing and overlooked their disparate politics and conflicting ideals.

Then another blow struck. Steinem was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986 and, for the first time, was forced to review her life and make major decisions about what she wanted. After surgery, she set to redecorating her apartment and making her life more comfortable. She curtailed her hectic schedule and in 1988, together with the other editors at Ms., made the decision to sell the magazine to an Australian company.

In hindsight, she conceded that she should have done it earlier. The burden of fund raising for Ms. during the backlash of the 1980s had become so overwhelming that, as one biographer put it, she found herself taking responsibility for the magazine just as she had done for her mother during her childhood. Steinem admitted that she had written Marilyn, her picture essay about Marilyn Monroe , to satisfy Ms.'s debt.

Once free of responsibility for the magazine, Steinem took a position at Random House Publishing and signed contracts for two books. She also continued supporting women's causes, especially her favorite, the Ms. Foundation, and speaking throughout the country, but her schedule was considerably less taxing. Her therapy sessions, which continued throughout those years, ultimately gave her more insights into herself, and helped her to write Revolution from Within, which came out in 1992. Although some critics praised the book, many of the reviews, both from feminists and anti-feminists, were negative. The mainstream media concentrated mainly on the few pages that covered her love affair with Zuckerman, while the feminists accused her of abandoning the movement for selfish reasons.

Just two years later, in 1994, Steinem's Moving Beyond Words appeared in print to much less notice. A book of essays, like Outrageous Acts, but with no unifying theme or message, Moving Beyond Words provoked neither much criticism nor much praise.

In her 60s, Steinem continued to support liberal and humanistic causes and to be devoted to feminism in all its aspects. She remained a consulting editor for Ms. after it was taken over in 1989 by Lang Communications, an American company, with feminist Robin Morgan as editorin-chief. Ten years later, with financing from a network of wealthy feminists ("What's different from the beginning of the women's movement is that now there are such women," she noted), Steinem bought back Ms. and rededicated it to its original mission. She occasionally reenters the limelight with an appearance at a major news event, such as her speech at the rally in support of Anita Hill after the Thomas-Hill Senate hearings, but in general her life is quieter. Her long, streaked blonde hair, once her hallmark, is now gray and tucked up in a bun, and she no longer wears her aviator glasses. She remains an important presence in American life, however, and her ideas, reflected in hundreds of articles and books, can be expected to command respect for many years to come. In September 2000, the media was delighted to learn that Steinem had gotten married. The ceremony, conducted in Oklahoma at the home of Steinem's longtime friend Wilma Mankiller , did not contain the words "obey" or "man and wife." She and her new husband David Bale, a political activist and entrepreneur, took the public response and ribbing (much of it about fish riding bicycles) with good nature. "Though I've worked for many years to make marriage more equal," she said, "I never expected to take advantage of it myself. I'm happy, surprised and one day will write about it, but for now, I hope this proves what feminists have always said—that feminism is about the ability to choose what's right at each time of our lives."

sources:

The Boston Globe. November 2, 2000, pp. D1, D5.

The Day [New London, CT]. November 6, 2000.

Henry, Sondra, and Emily Taitz. One Woman's Power: A Biography of Gloria Steinem. Afterword by Gloria Steinem. Minneapolis, MN: Dillon Press, 1987.

Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1983.

suggested reading:

Davis, Flora. Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America Since 1960. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Freeman, Jo. The Politics of Women's Liberation. NY: David McKay, 1975.

Friedan, Betty. It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement. NY: Random House, 1976.

Heilbrun, Carolyn G. The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem. NY: Dial Press, 1995.

Steinem, Gloria. Ms. Numerous articles from 1972 to 1986.

related media:

"A Bunny's Tale" (television movie), starring Kirstie Alley as Steinem, first aired in 1985.

collections:

Correspondence, papers and writings located in the Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts.

Emily Taitz , Adjunct Professor of Women's History at Adelphi University, and co-author of Written Out of History: Jewish Foremothers and One Woman's Power: A Biography of Gloria Steinem