Gloria Steinem, the journalist and activist who transformed women's rights in the United States, died Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 92.
Her official Instagram page announced her death Thursday, saying she was surrounded by loved ones. No cause was given.
Steinem became the public face of a movement that secured legal changes reshaping women's lives: the right to obtain credit without a man's signature, admission to Ivy League universities previously closed to them, and legalization of abortion nationwide.
A pioneer of the second-wave feminist movement in the 1960s, Steinem combined journalism with activism. Her reporting frequently intersected with her advocacy.
She first gained national attention in 1963 after working undercover as a Playboy bunny. Her exposé detailed poor working conditions at Hugh Hefner's Playboy clubs.
Her lifelong commitment to women's equality earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Steinem was born March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio. She and her older sister, Susanne, spent their early years traveling across the country as their father worked as an antiques salesman. She did not attend school regularly until age 11, after her parents divorced. She moved back to Ohio with her mother, Ruth, who struggled with mental health issues.
Steinem later said this experience shaped her activism. She often cited doctors' dismissal of her mother's concerns as a catalyst for her advocacy for women's voices in society. Caring for her mother as a child led her to decide against having children of her own.
"I'd already been the very small parent of a very big child — my mother," Steinem told People magazine in 1992. "I didn't want to end up taking care of someone else."
In 1956, Steinem graduated from Smith College with a degree in government, then an uncommon field for women.
Beyond her public work, Steinem fostered community by hosting "Talking Circles" for hundreds of guests in her living room. Her representatives asked supporters to light a candle in her honor and requested donations to Gloria's Foundation.
