Gloria Steinem, the pioneering feminist, journalist, and activist who spent more than six decades fighting for women’s equality, died on September 2, 2026, at age 92. Earlier this year, six months before her death, Steinem welcomed Glamour into her longtime New York City home for an original photo shoot and interview to celebrate the release of her upcoming book, An Unexpected Life: A Memoir which will be published on September 22. She was 91 when we arrived—and would celebrate her 92nd birthday on our set with a birthday cake.
Walking into Steinem’s home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side feels like entering the sort of New York you might romanticize—a duplex connected by an airy spiral staircase, walls painted in colour palettes reminiscent of a Frida Kahlo painting, a secluded brick-lined patio out back, and a cozy guest room with a fireplace, which will be the setting for the interview she has agreed to do with Glamour, a title Steinem was intimately familiar with.
Not only was she the recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Woman of the Year award in 2011, but she worked as a contributing editor for Glamour when she was starting out as a freelance journalist during the 1960s, covering the convergence of dating, style, politics, and cultural conversation. Her signature wit was always deployed, with headlines such as “Funny Ways to Meet Men on the Beach” (June 1963), “The Death of Cool and the Birth of Beyond-Cool” (October 1964) and “It’s a Young Man’s Game” (August 1965).
When our film crew and I first entered the guest room, Amy Richards, Gloria’s close friend and collaborator, tells us to move any furniture we need to. A small exercise bike sits in the middle of the room, glaringly out of place amid the cozy furnishings, but even her exercise equipment has been Gloria-fied: sitting atop the seat as lumbar support is a needlepoint pillow with the words “Being on the Best Sellers’ List Is the Best Revenge.”
Anastasia Sanger
Across from the bike, taped to the mirror, is a simple printout of a calendar labeled “Gloria’s Cycling Marathon Tracker!” Steinem had biked 14 miles so far. In a room filled with enough humanitarian awards, photos with legends, and travel souvenirs to fill a museum, the bike is a delightful reminder that even an American icon has to get her cardio in.
I take my seat on the floor by the camera, ask for quiet on the set, and prompt her to introduce the video: “I’m Gloria Steinem, and here are some lessons I’ve learned.” Below, in her own words, are these life lessons. —Anastasia Sanger, Glamour’s director of programming & creative development
A lesson on career: If they won’t give you the freedom, find it somewhere else.
In 1963 it was easier for me as a woman entering journalism because I was a freelancer. It wasn’t as if I was, as many women were, the only woman going into an all-male editorial meeting. I wasn’t full-time at Glamour, but I came to weekly editorial meetings, which are the most fun anyway, because you get to sit around a table and imagine what you could possibly do. And I was grateful for that encouragement.
I remember one time I got a job, I think with Ladies’ Home Journal—I’m not sure—and they had the nerve to expect me to be in the office! I quit. I remember walking in the street, getting an ice cream cone, walking in the sunshine, feeling happy.
New York Magazine allowed me to have a column of my own and also to have the freedom of working in my own house at my own desk if I wanted to, reporting on what I was discovering and caring about, like the farmworkers movement in California. I kind of wish I’d known there were more outlets than I understood where freelancers can submit and hopefully publish essays on what interests them or what they think is not getting covered in the news.
A lesson on falling in love: It’s not anti-feminist.
I haven’t fallen in love that many times, but at least three or four. As for what I would say to people who think falling in love with a man is anti-feminist? It makes no sense to say that because being a feminist is about becoming an equal human being. If the American family is viewed as a hierarchy with the male patriarch at the top, then feminism is democratizing that structure. I mean, if men are behaving badly, then we should let them know. If a woman freely chooses to be a trad wife, fine. Maybe men should be free to choose to be dependent too. It’s all about choice and the power to make the choice.
My view on marriage is that people should be able to choose it. The laws should be equal so that, say if you have children, the right to decide the future of those children should be equal. You should be able to choose your own name. Maybe both of you want to take the same hyphenated last name. Maybe you want to keep your birth name. Whatever it is, it should be up to you.
I think love is freely chosen. It’s hopefully not imposed by economic dependency or an inability to love outside your ethnicity or religion or language. It’s a true marriage of minds.
Getty/Glamour composite
A lesson on style: Wear what speaks to you.
I first got aviator sunglasses because I’m nearsighted. I was in my 20s. I sort of remember going to a sunglasses shop on 57th Street here in Manhattan and the salesperson was saying, “No, those are men’s glasses.” And I said, “Okay, but I want them anyway.” As for my wardrobe, I never wanted to spend a lot of money on clothes so I guess what I wear is universal. I mean, pants and a top in black or brown. I don’t feel like I’ve ever given style advice. I wear what I wear—and I get to choose what I wear, and I’m grateful that I do.
A lesson about getting older: Age however the hell you want to.
I was born in 1934. You do the math. I did look up online the oldest woman in the world, and the oldest one I could find was 130. So I have a new goal. I hope we’ll be rid of Donald Trump by then. [Laughs.]
Aging is a gift. Aging gracefully makes it sound as if aging is an external event and you’re supposed to age in a certain way. I think you’re supposed to age however the hell you want to. To lie about one’s age, especially for women, is to conform to the idea that women are only okay when we are seen as sexual or reproductive.
I’m not immune to society’s idea of what you should look like, but I never felt the need to have a facelift or something that hurt. I don’t want to have to do that. I want to be someone who helps assure other women that aging is a good thing because aging has been presented as being more a penalty for women than it is for men, and that’s just not true. I love it here in this world and I want to stay as long as possible.
A lesson on travel: Put yourself somewhere unfamiliar.
After I graduated from college, I was engaged and trying not to get married so it was important to go far away. There was an available scholarship to go to India, so I was lucky. India had just become independent of British rule; Gandhi was already a figure of great international hope and respect. It was actually easier to travel alone as a woman in India than it was in this country, because there were women-only cars on the railroad, for instance, or hostels where you could stay overnight that were only women. I spent the first many months living in a women’s dormitory at the University of Delhi.
Also, we spent a lot of time in a major Indian student occupation, which was sitting in coffee houses, just talking and listening and learning. That was very important, both for learning, because you’re learning about different cultures, and also for independence, because there you are on your own, hundreds and hundreds of miles from friends and family.
And I still think there’s something about traveling that requires you to be on your own and figure things out. I still fly coach. I mean, I understand that first class is more comfortable, but you’re going to get to the same place at the same time. So what’s the point? [Laughs.] I was comfortable enough, though, because I had organized with flight attendants and we kind of semi-knew each other, so if there were, say, four free seats across someplace on the plane, they would arrange for me to have those so I could lie down and sleep.
A lesson on activism: You learn from difference.
Because I was a writer, I got occasional invitations to speak—yet I was absolutely terrified of public speaking. But my friends like Flo Kennedy, who was a great civil rights lawyer, and the activist Dorothy Pittman Hughes, were fearless. So we would go together and express different life experiences that we arrived with, but a shared purpose. In our daily lives as a democracy, we hopefully see people of different races, different classes, different ages. The differences are precious because you don’t learn from sameness—hello, you learn from difference.
I think if we’re sitting in a group and everybody looks like us, there’s probably something wrong. It’s a joy to learn, and recognizing that we know more now than we did maybe 10 or 20 years ago is a process and a joy—not a criticism of who we were 10 or 20 years ago, but a testimony to the delight of changing and growing and understanding what we didn’t know before.
One last lesson: ‘Don’t take my advice.’
My advice for women now is don’t take my advice. Do what you love; do what you’re curious about. I’m living my life as best I can, but I don’t know your life, so I don’t want you to take my advice unless it feels like it fits your life.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photographer: Gillian Laub (@gigilaub)
Interview: Anastasia Sanger (@thecardigankid)
Fashion Director: Tchesmeni Leonard (@tchesmeni)
Hair & Makeup: Guerda Prairie (@guerdascious)
On Set Producer: Tiffany Bloomfield (@insidetheglow)
