Ms Steinem left home to live in Washington DC with her older sister for her last year at Western High School, and then attended Smith College, Northampton, Massachussetts studing Government and Political Affairs. After graduating she spent two years on a post-graduate fellowship in India, an experience which gave her insight into the inequalities she witnessed at home. It was here she participated in government protests.
On her return to the US Ms Steinem initially worked for the Independent Research Service (later to be unveiled as secretly funded by the CIA) but soon began her career in journalism. She was hired as the first employee of Help magazine in 1960, an early satirical magazine which ran until 1965.
Ms Steinem pursued a freelance journalism career which focused strongly on gender issues. One of her earliest, most renowned, articles was an undercover expose about the harsh pay and hard working conditions, and the litany of sexist behaviours which were expected as part of the job, of Playboy Bunny girls, and the article was made into a film in 1985. In 1969 Ms Steinem reported on an abortion speak-out meeting in New York, and this had a profound effect on her. In an article in New York Magazine, for whom the article was written and which she joined as a founding journalist at its inception in 1968, Ms Steinem said the meeting was the moment which began her life as an active feminist.
Ms Steinem co-founded Ms Magazine in 1972 with 5 other women as an attempt to address the profound imbalance and lack of representation of the lives of women as written about in other magazines purportedly aimed at women. She remains on the masthead and acts as an advisor to the current date, and was an active article contributor until it was sold in 1987.
Although Ms Steinem has continued to work as a freelance journalist throughout her life, she has also been very politically active. Some of the myriad organisations she has co-founded and/or supported include Women’s Action Alliance, National Women's Political Caucus, Choice USA, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Women's Media Center and GreenStone Media. She has served on the board of trustees of Smith College, and the Beyond Racism Initiative. She has also co-produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO and a feature film for Lifetime, both US-based television channels, and helped create the national Take Our Daughters to Work Day.
Amongst the many awards Ms Steinem has been presented with are an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism. She was the first recipient to be awarded the Doctorate of Human Justice by Simmons College, and received the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations. She was listed by Biography magazine as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
Ms Steinem came to prominence during what has since been defined as second wave feminism and became one of the first voices in the evolution of feminist theory and activism into what is currently known as the third wave of intersectional feminism. In her September 2009 Speech given at the Omega Institute she says: “I ... will leave that for the discussion time and look forward to learning from you, other guidelines, other ideas, of how we can unite across difference, learn from difference, realize humanity, and make a fan-f--kin’-tastic revolution”
Selected Publications by Ms Steinem:
The Thousand Indias, 1957
The Beach Book, 1963
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, 1983
Marilyn: Norma Jean, 1986
Revolution from Within, 1992
Moving beyond Words, 1993
Feminist Family Values, 1996
Doing Sixty & Seventy, 2006
Sources:
Official website of Ms Steinem: http://www.gloriasteinem.com/
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/gloriasteinem/a/gloria_steinem.htm
"Gloria Steinem." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 09 Apr. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/565002/Gloria-Steinem
http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/gloriaspeech.html (and biography annexed)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem
http://www.biography.com/people/gloria-steinem-9493491
http://nymag.com/news/features/ms-magazine-2011-11/
FOTW No. 1 in TIWAFLL compiled by Kayla Calkin: https://www.facebook.com/groups/234694839904110/
Blog by Tina Price-Johnson
http://fromthemindoftinapj.wordpress.com/
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