Gloria Steinem

American writer, editor and most noted feminist of her time. Steinem is the co-founder of "New York Magazine," founder of the Women's Active Alliance 1970 and of "Ms. Magazine" 1972.

Steinem has a sister ten years older than she. Her mother Ruth had been a journalist, but gave up her career to follow her husband Leo, a 300 pound salesman, who couldn’t stand his wife’s problems and left for California when Gloria was ten. Since her sister was away at college it fell to Gloria to take care of all her mother’s needs. Her parents divorced the following year. Abandoned by her beloved father, she buried herself in reading.

Never in school for more than a few weeks at a time, she spent her first full term in one school when she was 12 as prior to this her family was on the road in a house trailer, crisscrossing the country buying and selling antiques. Ruth had suffered a nervous breakdown, had hallucinations, was afraid to leave the house and took medications dispensed to her by Gloria.

When she was 12, Gloria took her mom to a doctor who confirmed she should be in a mental hospital. Steinem had read an article in "Life" magazine and knew she didn’t want her mother in that type of facility, opting to stay and care for her in the family home.

She took ballet when a teenager, danced in a local club and lied about her age when she was 15 in order to enter a beauty contest (which she lost). Gloria received a scholarship and Ruth sold the house to provide the rest of her tuition for Smith College where she majored in government. She graduated with honors in 1956, a Woodrow Wilson International Scholar.

At 22, just out of college, she was engaged to a seven-year-older man from a musical family. She knew it would be a mistake to marry him and while she was in England working as a waitress, waiting for a visa to India to study on a Fulbright Fellowship, had an abortion. This period in her life was one of the lowest, reaching the point of being near-suicidal.