Gloria Steinem, Feminist Icon, Dies at 92

 

These "ends of an era" sure seem to be coming fast and furious(ly) these days.

There has never been a time in my life when this woman's name wasn't synonymous with women's lib and second-wave feminism -- how many times did Archie Bunker invoke her in a fit of disgust? -- so this loss stings. We were lucky to have her, a true original.

My pal Tim Murphy shared a sweet story about a brief encounter with the Ms. Magazine legend, which I think you will also enjoy as much as I did.

May she rest in power.

He writes:

In 2016, I was a reader at the book festival Sean Strub started in Milford PA when he was mayor there. The festival was centered at the hotel Sean owned at the time, and when I came down to the hotel dining room, there was Sean with a small table of people including Gloria Steinem, then 82, who was a marquee guest at the festival. So I ended up sitting next to her and telling her it was an honor to meet her. Then her friend said, "Gloria, your session starts in 5 minutes." Ms. Steinem said: "I've barely touched my omelette," so I —who was starving and hadn't ordered food yet—offered to eat it. She said, "Good—my mother always said it's wrong to waste food."

That's a fun story but it doesn't convey how remarkable I thought she was. Particularly as a journalist all my life, I admired her especially for her smart, funny (and far more progressive/intersectional than her colleagues') columns for New York magazine in its earliest Nixon-era years. And as someone who has mainly been an HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ advocacy journalist my whole life, I always admired how Ms. did muscular advocacy journalism in such a fun and compelling package. Certainly it paved the way for many such future mags including POZ, which Sean started. 

I hope that, in her final days and hours, Ms. Steinem was suffused with a strong sense of the remarkable, courageous, moral, well-lived life that she lived.