Gloria Steinem's Enduring Legacy Justifies Continued Feminist Activism Against Current Backlash
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rebeccasolnit,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rokhaya-diallo,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/mona-eltahawy,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/eve-ensler,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/julia-gillard,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jennifer-robinson,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/elif-shafak,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rhiannon-lucy-cosslett. "‘Courage and contradictions’: what Gloria Steinem meant to feminist writers from around the world | Rebecca Solnit, Rokhaya Diallo, Mona Eltahawy, V (formerly Eve Ensler), Julia Gillard, Jennifer Robinson, Elif Shafak and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett | The Guardian." September 9, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
A group of feminist writers from around the world are honoring Gloria Steinem after her death, arguing that she fundamentally transformed women's rights and the feminist movement through her activism, journalism, and personal mentorship. They're using her legacy to argue that feminists today should draw strength from her example and continue fighting, especially now that women's rights are under serious attack again.
Conclusion
Gloria Steinem's decades-long feminist activism created transformative, lasting change for women worldwide, and her legacy demands that feminists continue and expand her work in the face of current backlash against women's rights.
Premises
- Steinem's co-founding of Ms magazine nationalized and mainstreamed the feminist movement, reaching women outside coastal cities and universities and giving them tools to understand their rights.
- Steinem's activism helped transform concrete legal and social realities for women, including marital rape laws, workplace protections, and economic rights that didn't exist before second-wave feminism.
- Unlike many white contemporaries, Steinem built genuine cross-racial solidarity, learning from and elevating Black feminists and other women of color even as she acknowledged the limits of her own visibility as 'the face' of a diverse movement.
- Steinem provided direct, personal support and mentorship to generations of feminist activists and writers across borders, strengthening the movement through kindness, encouragement, and concrete assistance.
- Steinem maintained decades of consistent commitment to gender equality despite non-linear progress and setbacks, demonstrating the stamina required for long-term social change.
- The current severe backlash against women's rights (reproductive rights, labor market exclusion, online abuse, etc.) is, according to Steinem's own framework, evidence of feminism's real power and threat to patriarchal structures.
- Steinem's life work is now essentially inseparable from the history and identity of the feminist movement itself, making her legacy a foundation that current activists must build upon.
Assumptions
- The improvements in women's legal and social status since the 1970s are causally attributable in significant part to the second-wave feminist movement Steinem helped lead, rather than to broader social or economic changes.
- Personal testimony and anecdote from prominent feminist writers constitute reliable evidence of Steinem's broader historical impact.
- A backlash against a movement is necessarily evidence of that movement's success/power, rather than evidence of the movement's failures or overreach.
- The current attacks on women's rights are comparable in kind (even if not degree) to conditions before second-wave feminism, making Steinem's activist model still applicable.
- Steinem's flaws (e.g., her defense of Bill Clinton, alignment with Democratic party, initial dismissal of Monica Lewinsky's allegations) do not substantially undermine the overall positive assessment of her legacy.