Gloria Steinem, a central figure in the feminist movement of the late 1960s, died Wednesday at age 92. She built her career on a single conviction: women could not achieve equality without control over reproduction.
The movement she led transformed American culture. Women poured into the workforce. Legal protections against discrimination followed. Abortion access became a constitutional right.
Steinem lived to see it all reversed. In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. Thirteen states enacted total or near-total abortion bans. Four more prohibited abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy—before many women know they are pregnant.
But the backlash went further. Christian conservative activists and Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, launched a coordinated campaign to push young women toward early marriage and motherhood over career. The Heritage Foundation published "Saving America by Saving the Family," a policy roadmap that proposed Congress create investment accounts with $2,500 deposits for men and women who marry before age 30.
Delano Squires, a co-author of the Heritage Foundation report, said feminism "did a grave disservice to women, and men by extension, by promoting the idea that marriage and family are lesser pursuits and should be deprioritized."
Emma Waters, another Heritage Foundation analyst and co-author, has become an influential voice among young conservative Christians. She targets what she calls the "career-first culture" fostered by feminism. In an article criticizing Ms. the magazine Steinem co-founded, Waters wrote: "Today, the most countercultural thing a 28-year-old woman can do is take her husband's name and be open to the gift of motherhood." Steinem herself never had children.
Steinem called the Roe overturn a setback for democracy. Conservative activists celebrated it as a victory. Now the battle over whether women's primary role is citizen or mother—worker or wife—has become central to American politics.
