top of page
  • Writer's pictureWomen's Development Cell Blog - Daulat Ram College

The Mother of Feminism - Gloria Steinem



“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn. We are filled with popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up”– Gloria Steinem

There is no one who has championed women's rights more than Gloria Steinem. She has had many long and venerable careers, operating as an associate activist for women’s rights, and a journalist, too. Steinem's story is a reminder of the fact that you do not need to satisfy the standard measures of success at the prescribed ages.

She was born in Toledo, Buckeye State on March 25, 1934. Steinem’s tough upbringing helped her build the tools that created her a good activist. She didn’t pay a full year in class till she was eleven, once her folks unmarried and she or he moved back to Ohio along with her mother. She spent several of her teenage years caring for her mother, United Nations agency struggled with psychopathy. Whereas Steinem’s young life was jam-packed with struggle, natural virtue and feminism were actually in her blood.

She attended Smith, the world-renowned women’s school, majoring in government and graduating with honours in 1956. A biennial fellowship took her to an Asian country, wherever she took an interest in Gandhi and grassroots policy. When returning to the U.S. she served as the director of the freelance analysis Service, working to send non-Communist yank students to the 1959 World Youth pageant. In 1960, she was employed by Warren business enterprise as the initial worker of Help! Magazine.


In the early Sixties, she wrote regarding “the contraceptive revolution” for Esquire magazine regarding their poor operating conditions and sexual exploitation. Then when building her career as a journalist, she went on to start out her own publications. In 1968, she cofounded big apple Magazine and 3 years later co-founded the activist women’s magazine, ‘Ms. Foundation’. The title of the new magazine was provocative and terminated up unveiling a brand new word, a brand new manner for ladies to admit themselves as people.


She was the initiation president of the Ms Foundation for ladies, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots comes to empower ladies and women, and conjointly a founding father of its Take Our Daughters to figure Day, the primary national day dedicated to women that have become an establishment here and in different countries. She was a member of the on the far side Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on part of activists and specialists from the Republic of South Africa, Brazil and also the U.S. to check the racial patterns of these 3 countries and to be told cross-nationally. As an associate activist, women's rightist has dedicated her life to travel so as to relinquish talks, to market feminist causes, together with the time, and to facilitate discussions amongst numerous teams.


Steinem addressed Lesley University’s state capital Speakers Series at Symphony Hall, wherever she said that “We’ve become rather more aware that the best reason behind war and violence isn't access to natural resources or financial condition or faith or maybe a degree of democracy, it’s really gender roles - domination of and violence against females, And after we see that in our families, it normalizes that sort of relationship everyplace else. we tend to square measure ne'er attending to have a democracy till we've got democratic families. We’re not attending to diminish violence publicly life till we tend to diminish dominance and violence privately life. It’s simply basic.”


During a spoken language on “Traversing Feminism, Race and sex in 2021, women's rightist aforesaid, she believes golf shot additional worth on listening, and different stereotypically “feminine” behaviours like caretaking or showing emotions, doesn’t simply profit ladies. “I’m positive men would have fewer issues with force per unit area and tension so on if it absolutely was additional socially OK for them to cry,” she added.


Steinem had become one of the most outspoken female voices in America and was often seen as a spokesperson for gender equality. Joining forces with other notable female leaders of the day, including Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug, Steinem pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment after testifying before U.S. Congress in 1970. Just two years later, the amendment was passed.


Her books include:


● My Life on the road

● Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem,

● Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions,

● Moving Beyond Words,

● Doing Sixty & Seventy

● Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe,

● and in India, As If Women Matter


For her writing, women's rightist has received multiple awards, together with the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards and also the live-action in Journalism Award from the Society of skilled Journalists. On July 10, 1971, women's rightist was one every of the over 300 ladies United Nations agency supported the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), together with such notables as Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Myrlie Evers-Williams. In November, President Obama awarded the long-lasting feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem with the Presidential decoration of Freedom, the very best civilian honour conferred by the U.S.

“Because of her work, across America and around the world, additional ladies square measure afforded the respect and opportunities that they merit,” Obama aforesaid as he given women's rightist with the decoration.


When the Depression was touching heights, at that point a rare lady took birth on the twenty-fifth of March 1934, United Nations agency grew up and have become “mother of feminism’’ – Gloria Steinem, there's no name within the list of forefront women’s rights pol the maximum amount as her name hits from the last fifty-five years and additional to travel.


Though women's rightist is attributable as serving to ladies realize a voice in a very historically male-dominated society, she conjointly redefined what it meant to be a "feminist." She instructed the North American nation that feminism is not just for ladies once she said: "A feminist is anyone, United Nations agency, acknowledges the equality and full humanity of women and men."


References :



About the Author:


Riddima is currently pursuing Bachelor in Commerce from Delhi University. She is a coffee addict and she loves to observe people. When she’s free she can usually be found binge-watching her favourite series. You can reach out to her for conversations about food, music and movies.



bottom of page