Feminist trailblazer Gloria Steinem has died at 92. The iconic thought leader and award-winning journalist co-founded Ms. magazine and became one of the faces of women’s liberation, and continued to advocate for equality until the very end.
Her death comes at an already tumultuous time for women’s rights.
Since the 2022 Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion care, states have implemented restrictive abortion laws. After President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, women began stockpiling Plan B and abortion pills before his inauguration for fear of a nationwide abortion ban. Some abortion clinics have tripled their intake of out-of-state patients.
And it’s not just abortion care. Women are feeling the
impact of reduced support worldwide.
According to a July 2026 report from UN Women, nearly 1 million women and girls globally have lost access to humanitarian aid within the last year due to aid cuts. The Trump administration slashed billions of dollars in foreign assistance, and as other major international donors also reduce aid budgets, the majority of organizations surveyed (60%) said they can no longer meet current levels of need. In early 2025, active research grants cut by the National Institutes of Health disproportionately impacted female scientists, and the administration’s attempt to block federal funds from any programs that “promote gender ideology” shook gender-based violence prevention organizations.
At the same time, a subculture of "trad wives" has rapidly grown in popularity on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Self-proclaimed trad wives are women who live “traditional" lifestyles – sometimes promoting the idea of being subservient to their husbands.
Trad wife content creators have influenced cultural conversations around politics and heightened this nostalgia for a rose-colored version of the past – one that Steinem rejected when women didn’t have the choice to opt in or out.
The world has changed. What does it mean for Gloria Steinem's legacy?
Most trad wife creators have chosen to stay silent on their political ideologies, but they still often present a certain lifestyle and family unit that the Make America Great Again campaign has promoted. The Republican party has promised a return to the good ol’ days, with strong nuclear families at the crux and a fight against the declining birth rate.
While some look at this aesthetic as idealizing a time where women had fewer rights and independence, many trad wives do not think their roles are degrading.
But in the era of the traditional housewife, being a homemaker was not always a form of empowerment, nor was it objectively desirable.
“Up until the 1970s, a woman wasn't even allowed to get a credit card without her husband signing off. There would be no women that had their own Instagram accounts, just posting content at will,” Juliet A. Williams, a gender studies professor at UCLA, previously told USA TODAY.
While Steinem never directly commented on trad wives, her teachings still resonate, perhaps now more than ever in this increasingly political landscape.
Steinem was critical of marriage and spent much of her life unmarried and without children. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," she famously quoted.
The choice, she said, was to protect herself in a time where getting married meant losing her name, legal residence, credit rating, and “many of her civil rights,” Steinem said when she eventually did marry at 66, after spending "30 years in the United States changing the marriage laws."
Toward the end of her life, she spoke about her legacy and her wish to continue the fight for equality. Since 2011, she co-convened the Frontline Women's Fund, which aimed to increase funding and awareness and provide resources for women's causes. She published her book, "The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!" in 2019, which included essays on relationships, the patriarchy and activism through her feminist lens.
In 2023, she published a reflection on intergenerational feminism in Ms.’ 50th anniversary issue. The world has changed since Steinem first became a face for second-wave feminism – in many parts because of her contributions to women’s rights – but she was steadfast in her belief that we remain in "hierarchical times," and her work was not yet finished.
“Patriarchy was the beginning of hierarchy, reinforced by racism and classism and nationalism, but since this began with controlling reproduction, free women can bring down the hierarchy,” she argued, adding that “democracy starts with the ability of women to make decisions over our own bodies.”
She was often asked if, at her age, she was “passing the torch.”
But her answer was no: “I’m keeping my torch, thank you very much, and I’m using it to light the torches of others. Because only if each of us has a torch will there be enough light.”
“I won’t be around for the next 50 years, but you who are reading this may be,” she wrote. “Imagining is the first step to creating. Let’s do it together!”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gloria Steinem, trad wives and how the world has changed
