September 22, 2026
Gloria Steinem’s Feminist Legacy: A Timeline of Change
Ms. Foundation mourns the loss of Gloria Steinem, our co-founding mother and a pioneering feminist organizer whose vision helped shape the organization we are today. Over the course of her extraordinary life, Gloria challenged systems of power and amplified women’s voices through her writing, organizing work, and movement building. She also co-founded more than a dozen feminist organizations, including the Foundation.
Here are a few of her key contributions to the Foundation and to feminism:
1969: Gloria reports on an abortion speak-out in Greenwich Village, where women publicly share their experiences. She later described this as the moment feminism “clicked” for her.
1971: Gloria co-founds the National Women’s Political Caucus alongside women including Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Myrlie Evers-Williams, and Betty Friedan.
1972: Gloria co-founds Ms. Magazine with a group of feminist editors. The magazine’s first issue sells out of its 300,000 copies in eight days.
1973: Gloria, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Marlo Thomas establish Ms. Foundation for Women, grounded in the then-radical idea that women could identify their own problems and lead the solutions.
1977: Gloria joins thousands of women, in Houston, for the National Women’s Conference, the first federally funded gathering of its kind, alongside leaders including Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Betty Ford, and Rosalynn Carter.
1988: Ms. Foundation launches an annual awards program named for Gloria — the Gloria Awards — recognizing women whose leadership is advancing social change.
1993: The Foundation launches Take Our Daughters to Work Day, an initiative Gloria helped Marie C. Wilson establish that over the years has involved millions of girls (and now boys).
2005: Gloria co-founds the Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, working to increase women’s visibility and power in media.
2013: President Barack Obama awards Gloria the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
2017: Gloria co-chairs the Women’s March. In her speech, she calls out that the crowds in Washington, DC, and around the world, were gathered to fight “for a deep democracy that says we will not be quiet. We will not be controlled.” She urges the crowd to connect with one another and plan for continued action
2023: In honor of Ms. Foundation’s 50th anniversary, Gloria joins the Foundation at the Women of Vision Awards, where she presents Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex with a Woman of Vision award.