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Rest in Power: Gloria Steinem, Ms. Cofounder and Feminist Visionary - Ms. Magazine
Gloria Steinem, the journalist, organizer and cofounder of <em>Ms.</em> whose name became inseparable from the modern movement for women’s equality, died Wednesday, Sept. 2, at her home in New York City. She was 92.
In 2001, Gloria came to Ellie Smeal and me to discuss the possibility of the Feminist Majority Foundation taking on the publication of <em>Ms.</em> She had rescued the magazine from a series of commercial publishers that had nearly killed it, and it was now facing the headwinds of a rapidly changing media landscape.
We understood, we were being entrusted with far more than a publication—we were being asked to preserve an independent feminist institution, and to keep it alive, questioning and relevant for generations.
That responsibility is more urgent today than at any time in recent memory.
Gloria understood from the beginning that feminism needed its own media—not because feminists should withdraw from the larger public conversation, but because independent media can introduce truths the mainstream has not yet learned to recognize.
Gloria Steinem changed the story women were permitted to tell about themselves. Now it is our responsibility to keep telling the truth.
