Gloria Steinem, the journalist, activist, and one of the most enduring faces of the American women's liberation movement, died peacefully at her home in New York City on Wednesday, surrounded by loved ones. She was 92. Her foundation announced the news on social media, describing her as someone whose "words, actions and example gave people permission to be their truest selves" and noting that "she continued working for equality until the very end."

Born on 25 March 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem had an unconventional childhood — her parents divorced when she was ten, leaving her to care for her mother, a former journalist who had suffered a nervous breakdown. She read voraciously in place of formal schooling, eventually graduating from Smith College in the late 1950s. A fellowship then took her to India, where she spent two years studying at Delhi University's Miranda House and helping village women organise non-violent protests — an experience that ignited a lifelong passion for grassroots activism. She moved to New York City in the early 1960s to work as a freelance journalist, gaining her first major attention with an undercover exposé of the exploitative conditions faced by women working as Playboy Bunnies. She became a columnist for New York magazine before co-founding Ms. magazine in 1972 — one of the first publications to address women's issues beyond housekeeping and beauty, and whose debut issue sold 300,000 copies. She also co-founded the Women's Action Alliance and the National Women's Political Caucus, and was a prominent voice for reproductive rights, equal pay, same-sex marriage, and opposition to the death penalty and female genital mutilation. Having obtained an illegal abortion herself in London at age 22, she celebrated the US Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling and later condemned its reversal in 2022. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honour.

Steinem was not without her critics. Black feminist writer Alice Walker resigned from Ms. magazine in the late 1980s, citing a lack of diversity. Fellow feminist leader Betty Friedan clashed with Steinem over her critiques of traditional marriage and men. For years Steinem famously resisted marriage — quipping that she "couldn't mate in captivity" — before wedding South African-born entrepreneur David Bale in 2000; he died three years later. Steinem always acknowledged that she was one voice among many: accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she said she would "be crazy" not to understand it was "a medal for the entire women's movement."

Her influence extended well beyond the United States. In India, she maintained close ties with activist Ruchira Gupta, founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organisation working to end sex trafficking, whose advisory board Steinem chaired. Colleagues described her warmth and accessibility — she was known for engaging with community journalists and grassroots organisers rather than simply delivering keynote speeches and departing. In her final years, she hosted "Talking Circles" at her New York home, gathering hundreds of people for the kind of in-person connection she believed was essential to building movements. A forthcoming memoir, An Unexpected Life, is set for release this autumn.

Tributes poured in from across the world. Meghan Markle described Steinem as a friend and mentor who was "privately, even better than you would imagine." Hillary Clinton called her "one of the architects of the entire structure of women's equality," adding that "her activism was rooted in optimism, and that's a moral choice, and she made it every day." For the many women whose careers, rights, and sense of self were shaped by her decades of work, Gloria Steinem's death marks the end of an era — even as the movements she helped build continue.