Ageism, as well as sexism and racism, have, of course, long afflicted the world’s women. In 1983, when Gloria was only 49, she was apparently regarded by some as already approaching “over the hill” status. “At my age,” she wrote that year, “people often ask me if I’m ‘passing the torch.’ I explain that I’m keeping my torch, thank you very much—and I’m using it to light the torches of others.” She lit hosts of individual torches from well before the date of that declaration until her death on September 2, 2026, at age 92—and the fires within that she inspired continue to burn. Her life, words, and gracefully determined efforts will long continue to resonate with women—and open-minded men—of all ages around the world.
Gloria at home with friends, photograph by Katie Lyman, courtesy of the office of Gloria Steinem.
The tributes we received from so many members of the Persimmon Tree community are testaments to her dedication, grace, and generosity. “As I grew up in the ‘70s, she was the feminist I longed to be,” writes Carol Wilson of Wimauma, FL, “independent, brilliant, courageous. . . . She was a beacon in my confused world . . . . Even her death brings me hope, since she stayed positive about feminist values and gains, despite living to witness these dark setback times.”
Molly Jo Mullen of Portland, OR, writes that when she was 15, her mother dragged her, grudgingly, to a program featuring Gloria. “This woman was so cool!” she remembers thinking. “[F]rom that point on, I understood what feminism was. . . . Gloria helped me stand up for myself and for others. . . . Most importantly, I found confidence knowing that there were other women and girls who felt the way I did.” Eleanor Rubin, of Canton, MA., quotes Gloria: “‘Self-esteem isn’t everything–it’s just that there is nothing without it.’” She goes on to declare, “Steinem helped me and others to value their own energy and outrage. She always remained angry about injustice, and she wrote stirringly about oppression that needed to change.”
An oft-published author and influential editor as part of her lifetime of activism, Gloria spearheaded the creation of Ms. Magazine, which opened new worlds to many women. “When I was a lonely, disillusioned teenager, Ms. Magazine made its way to a drugstore in my small Iowa town,” writes Merry Song of Eugene, OR. “I instantly reached for it and felt empowered with the possibility of a better life for women.” Lauren Shenfield, of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, remembers that, in the 1970s “when Leslie Stahl and Eileen Shanahan were among the few women stars in journalism, Gloria inspired me and thousands of others, young and old, as a writer and as a feminist. I still have the first issue of Ms. Magazine that was inserted into New York by her mentor Clay Felker. When Ms. became an independent publication, created, owned, and run entirely by women, I read every word.”
Despite her prominence at Ms. and in the other areas of her activist life, Gloria had “a lifelong resistance to being made the face of the women’s movement,” Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Gloria’s co-editor at Ms.—and a current member of Persimmon Tree’s Council of Advisors—notes, in a September 11, 2026, guest essay in the New York Times. “[S]he consistently deflected credit to women who couldn’t command media attention for their urgent work in, say, women’s health, reproductive rights, academia, labor unions, or rape crisis counseling.”
A host of determined protesters — including, in the vanguard, Gloria Steinem, photograph courtesy of the office of Gloria Steinem.
Yet, because of her presence and unremitting efforts to move the world toward greater justice, spotlights tended to focus on Gloria. “Impossibly glamorous her entire life, yet possessing an accessible, kind affect and a well-honed sense of humor,” writes Susan Kane of Mount Kisco, NY, “she was an eternally inspiring role model. We all know that there is still much progress to be made, including rolling back the setbacks experienced since the heady days of the early ‘70s. We need leaders like her more than ever.”
Below you will find many more tributes to Gloria and the great influence she’s had—and will continue to have through the lives she has affected. We look forward to receiving other tributes, via the comment pane at the end of this page. All these tributes to this extraordinary woman will be preserved in the archives of Persimmon Tree, a hallmark publication started by a group of proud women of the sort that “our parents warned us about,” as Gloria famously said—and a magazine that owes much to her example and support.
In the year 2000, future Persimmon Tree Music Editor Gena Raps sits beside Gloria Steinem at the piano during a holiday party at the home of Marilyn French. Standing, from left to right, Esther Broner, Evangeline Benedetti, and Marilyn French. Gena writes: “Marilyn, Gloria, Esther and Carol Jenkins were solstice sisters and met four times a year. Esther loved ritual and was known for inventing them. She wrote, Bringing Home the Light, A Jewish Woman’s Handbook of Rituals. When Marilyn French was ill with esophageal cancer and in a coma, the solstice sisters performed rituals in her room at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. When Marilyn came out of the coma, other families asked them to perform rituals for their loved ones.”
In 1974, I could not qualify for a credit card. I was denied, despite having a bachelor's degree, a master’s degree, a job, and a car. I was told to have my bank write a letter on my behalf. It was demeaning to walk into that bank with my paperwork and request the letter. I was a well-educated, accomplished young woman who was made to feel like a child.
Steinem knew that feeling, no doubt. She too had experienced prejudice. Yet, many people didn’t understand.
They said, “These women want to be men. They don’t want men to open car doors for them or take them to dinner.”
To trivialize any struggle for equality is inexcusable. Yet, throughout history, all movements have received pushback.
Steinem opened a dialogue in 1971. She didn’t stop there. She started the women’s movement, published Ms. Magazine, and kept right on going. She knew this fight for equality for women would be her life’s work. She wrote, she spoke, she made “good trouble.”
I could always open my own car door. It was those other doors that were opened for me thanks to Gloria Steinem.
Like the derivation of the word persimmon, Gloria Steinem was a bit of a mystery. But like the tree, she grew and persisted in her promotion and support of all things women. Like its ripened fruit, she responded to her call well into the winter of her life.
Gloria was the leader of our poised, battle-smart warrior-community, millions stronger than the adversary could ever have imagined; a momentum-shifting, people-powered, grass-roots force with which the opposition ultimately had to reckon. Unfortunately, the legal tide has turned against us. But we’ll channel her spirit and stand together in the fight of our lives once again. We realize our superpower is the VOTE, a dangerous, ever-vigilant giant willing to get into good trouble to fight for human rights. Like Gloria, it knows hard work is good work.
In the late 1960s, I was a teenager with acne. One day, my loving aunt commented that there was no need to worry, “You’ll outgrow it. Your skin will clear up.”
“Yes, but someday she needs to find a husband,” my mother added to the conversation.
In June 1972, I graduated from high school. In July 1972, the first issue of Ms. Magazine came out. In September 1972, I started college. My mother’s advice: “Work hard in college, graduate, so you can make your own money and never have to take any crap from a man.”
Somehow, something had shifted. My mother now espoused the cultural and political momentum that would lead to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974). Women no longer needed a male co-signer for mortgages, credit cards, or bank accounts.
Who had forced financial equality, among other vital issues, into the national spotlight? Ms. Gloria Steinem.
In September 2021, I closed on the condo I had purchased with my own money, in York Harbor, Maine. Though I am married and my husband offered to help, I said, “I need to do this on my own.”
Thank you, Ms. Steinem.
Gloria greets, and perhaps passes the torch, to a member of a younger generation, photograph by Carly Romeon, courtesy of the office of Gloria Steinem.
I could do what my mother could not. I could live without a man at my side, support my children with my writing, and eventually, at age 69, buy my own house. As a writer I was proud of two essays I published in Ms., the first about a sheep co-op in Guatemala that helped women support their families, and the second exploring nontraditional job training for women in West Virginia. When she was in college, my daughter secured an internship on the development team at the Ms. Foundation. This mama was proud.
I will be forever grateful to Gloria Steinem for showing us that choice is foundational to equality.
No one—not my parents, not my teachers—ever suggested to me that I could define a life for myself that was not dependent on a man, or men. I knew that something was terribly unfair, but I didn’t have the words to describe it, and—even if I had—there was no one to whom I could have explained these feelings.
As a young woman, I was denied credit, denied a job for which I was qualified, and denied medical care that I needed—all because I was a woman. And I was—of course—also significantly underpaid for my work.
Then Gloria Steinem appeared. I listened to her, I read everything that she wrote, and I was finally able to express the feelings that I felt about being a woman in a culture that did not (and does not) value women and girls. I would go on to become a feminist activist, strengthened by the courage of the brilliant, gracious, wise, and often humorous woman in aviator glasses. It’s still hard to be a woman, but Gloria Steinem did so much to change my world—and my life.
Did you know how far your voice reached? Probably. Did you know that in 1974 you untangled the messy life of a 17-year-old girl in Vancouver, BC, who was searching a newsstand for something new to read? Hopefully. Did you know that in 2026, your name grabbed the attention of that girl, now a woman many years over 60, who stumbled across Persimmon Tree? Maybe.
In the 1970s, when I read Ms. Magazine, a door opened on how to respond to people who called me “Miss.” I was not Miss or Mrs. I was, and have always been since then, Ms.
In the 1980s, your words equipped me with power to respond to male bosses who called me “my girl.” You gave me the knowledge to say with dignity, “My name is Lisa.”
Throughout my life, you handed me several gifts so I could say “I am the woman my parents warned me against, and I am proud.”
Thank you, Gloria, for your voice. It crossed the border to Canada and that girl at the newsstand in 1974 seized it, so she could become informed, liberated, and free. Sisterhood is powerful.
Such things DO NOT happen.
Even more surprising was how open she was when I greeted her. I imagine she flipped through a mental Rolodex while I gushed (surely, I gushed) and she drew a blank before my own native sensibilities reined me in.
Ms. Steinem listened to me. She was present in a way that is rare in modern life, though halted in a rush of office workers forced to part and none too happy about it.
Emily Dickinson wrote, “I’m Nobody. Who are you?” But Ms. Steinem redefined identity for millions of women. She gave her illustrious life to make sure we changed our minds. What an honor to experience her deep regard for human beings.
Now I have a nine-year-old granddaughter, two others, and a grandson, who need to hear Gloria’s story. Second-wave feminists, and their movement, must be studied in school and recognized as equally important to the cause of human rights as their ancestors and successors. Many elementary school children can identify photographs of nineteenth-century women suffragettes, but do they recognize the gently assertive woman in aviator glasses who helped lead feminists into the twentieth century?
When I received a subscription to Ms. as a Christmas gift in the early 1970s, I was at the height of my rebellious teen years and needed the guidance of Gloria and other feminist writers to help me understand a changing world and the ever-present struggle for equality across and beyond genders. I tried to pass their message to my son and daughters. Now it’s time to find my old copies of Ms. and share them with the grandkids.
Pat Jablonski and Gloria Steinem
While I was seeing my doctor, a young woman, today, she asked why I was glum. I told her that the recent deaths of two of my heroes left me torn between sad that they've died and grateful that they'd lived.
She said she knew Dolly had died, but who else? I replied, "Gloria Steinem." She looked blank; "Who's that?"
Astonished, I blurted, "A large part of the reason you have all the rights and freedoms you currently enjoy, including becoming a doctor.”
She startled. "I grew up in Seneca Falls, NY. I’m surprised I've never heard of her.”
We decided that Seneca Falls is devoted to First-Wave Feminists — Susan B. and her crowd. Gloria Steinem was one of the many icons of 50 years ago, who with Ellie Smeal, Bella Abzug, and many others, opened the doors and paved the roads for the dawning of "Sisterhood is Powerful.”
After all the years of marching, writing, and speaking out, are women still not a large enough part of the weave of history that their threads have to be bright red to be noticed? Then let's get out the dye!
Leaving Home at 83 is an intensely personal story yet one shared with thousands of aging women who are wondering whether to move closer to their children and leave their friendships behind or stay in their communities. Readers will see their own questions on these pages and recognize their own fears, insecurities, and uncertainties.
Butler examines the often-unspoken struggle to sustain our autonomy as we age and our conflicted longing for dependency as we become more vulnerable. Both longings are embedded in the desire not to be a burden to those we love.
With its sharp humor and refreshing honesty, this wry account brings a welcome and necessary perspective to the inevitable moment when we end one chapter of our lives and begin whatever comes next.
“...The ensemble of characters is hilarious, jaw-clenching, at times worthy of a Jack Russell Terrier head tilt. Butler’s writing is tender, funny and unequivocally relatable.”
—Karen Lee Erlichman, D.Min, LCSW, psychotherapist, spiritual director, writer and mentor.
Available from Amazon and at www.sandrabutler.net.
Incredible – the reach of her influence!!!!