Gloria Marie Steinem was born in Toledo in Ohio on 25th March 1934 and is a millionaire, a feminist, a journalist and a social and political activist.
Steinem went to Waite High School in Toledo and Western High School in Washington D.C. She went to Smith College and in 1960 was got a job at Warren Publishing where she was the initial employee of the magazine Help!.
In 1962 she wrote her first “serious” article for Esquire magazine about how women have to decide between having a husband and having a career. In 1963 she wrote an article about how women in Playboy were treated which was later made into the 1985 film “A Bunny’s Tale”. In 1968 she was hired by New York magazine and in 1969 she first started to became a prominent figure in society. She was the founding editor and publisher of the Ms. Magazine which started in 1972 as a unique publication of New York Magazine. Ms was the most influential publication of second-wave feminism and Steinem continued to be a writer for it up until 1987 when it got sold. In 1991 the magazine was revived and she served as a consulting editor. She now is a member of the advisory board for the magazine.
In the 1970s she became a leading politician and was one of the key figures in second-wave feminism during the 1960s and 1970s. She founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 with other feminist leaders such as Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer, Myrlie Evers, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug. In 1974 she co-founded the Coalition of Labour Union Women. She also co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance along with Brenda Feigan and Catherine Samuals and chaired the board from 1971 to 1978. In June 1997 the Women’s Action Alliance was dissolved by a vote of the Board of Directors. In 1992 she co-founded Choice USA which provides support to the younger generation and she also co-founded the Women’s Media Centre. She is now an important member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
On 3rd September 2000 when she was 66 she married David Bale who is the father of actor Christian Bale. On 30th December 2003 he died of brain lymphoma at the age of 62.
Her list of works include The Thousand Indias (1957), The Beach Book (1963), Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Marilyn: Norma Jean (1986), Revolution from Within (1992), Moving beyond Words (1993) and Doing Sixty & Seventy (2006).