4 min readOct 1, 2026 05:14 PM IST
First published on: Sep 5, 2026 at 06:45 PM IST
Gloria Steinem, who passed away in New York at age 92, was a journalist, social movement organiser, co-founder of Ms. magazine, and one of feminism’s most recognisable voices internationally. She was, however, first and last, a writer, and it is through her prose, wry and unflinching, that her particular brand of activism endures. From her legendary 1963 undercover exposé as a Playboy Bunny to her late-in-life reflections on ageing, her books offer insight into her self-interrogating brand of feminism. Those seeking to understand the woman behind the aviators should check out these five works:
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
Steinem had the unique ability to be furious and funny at the same time. This collection of essays is no different. It opens with her account of going undercover as a Playboy Bunny, documenting the humiliating uniforms, petty fines, and sexual surveillance that passed for glamour. The book then widens its lens to profile political pioneers, dissects the “click” of consciousness-raising, and exposes what she called the all-pervasive architecture of patriarchy. For the uninitiated, this is the place to start, a primer in Steinem’s blend of reportage and memoir, and polemic.
Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992)
Steinem called this her most misunderstood work, and it is easy to see why. In an era of street-level protest, a book about self-esteem seemed, to some, a retreat into therapy. However, Steinem postulates that external liberation without internal healing is hollow. Drawing on psychology and her own childhood memories, she traced how low self-worth is a cage in itself, and how women schooled in self-doubt cannot seize power. Borrowing from the civil rights movement’s emphasis on dignity, she reframed self-worth as a collective resource rather than an exercise in narcissism. A woman who truly values herself, she insisted, will never tolerate a sexist boss or an abusive partner.
My Life on the Road (2015)
This memoir is an autobiography-cum-travelogue anchored by anecdotes from her two years in India, and her later return to meet the freedom fighter Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, to collect Gandhian tactics of nonviolence for the international women’s movement, only to be informed by the freedom fighter that Mahatma Gandhi himself was inspired by feminist movements at home and abroad. Interspersed are also tales of bad diner coffee and lost luggage, small moments that humanise the icon and reveal a woman of endless curiosity. It reminds us that Steinem’s feminism was on the road, in conversation with strangers, rather than in the seminar room.
Moving Beyond Words (1994)
In this essay collection, Steinem plays the role of intellectual provocateur. She imagines a “conference” where women run the global economy; she scrutinises the medical establishment’s dismissal of female pain; she eviscerates the beauty industry as a trillion-dollar confidence trick. Each piece is a thought experiment: What if we valued care work as GDP? What if ageing were celebrated rather than erased? Though written in the 1990s, its critiques of corporate feminism and performative inclusion remain prescient.
Doing Sixty and Seventy (2006)
Published as two linked essays, this slim volume tackles what Steinem called the last great feminist taboo: old age. She dismisses the “invisibility” trope, arguing instead that post-menopausal women are society’s most liberated cohort—free, at last, from the male gaze and finally permitted to speak their minds. She recounts turning 70 on a ranch in New Mexico, surrounded by younger activists who did not treat her as an old-world relic. It insists on joy and relevance long after the culture has written women off.
Gloria Steinem. (Wikimedia Commons) 
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