Gloria Steinem dies at 92: The two years she spent in India before becoming a feminist icon changed how she saw activism
In the late 1950s, Gloria Steinem, a young American journalist travelled to India and spent two years here. She was far from the feminist movement she would later help define, and far from the public figure who would become one of the most recognisable voices for women’s rights. But India gave her something that stayed with her: a different way of looking at how ordinary people could create change.Steinem died at 92, leaving behind more than five decades of activism, journalism and feminist organising. Her death was announced on Thursday, with a statement saying she had continued working for equality until the end.What makes her Indian chapter particularly fascinating is where it sits in the timeline of her life. It happened before the marches, before Ms. magazine, before she became a household name and before feminism became the defining public cause with which she was associated.According to the Guardian, Steinem travelled to India for two years after graduating from college in 1956 and worked as a legal clerk in the country’s Supreme Court.It was an experience that would become part of the intellectual foundation of the woman she later became.“In the late 1950s she went to India on a research scholarship, and spent two years in a variety of roles, including helping village women organise non-violent protests against government policies, which sparked her interest in grassroots activism,” BBC reported.Steinem’s early life had already made her unusually curious about the world. She grew up travelling with her father, who sold antiques, and spent much of her childhood moving from place to place. Her mother, meanwhile, struggled with mental illness and the family lived through periods of financial difficulty.
Her early life
Steinem’s childhood was far removed from the polished image of the feminist icon she would later become. She grew up in Ohio and spent much of her early life moving around with her father, Leo, an antiques dealer who preferred an unpredictable life on the road to a settled home.Her mother, Ruth, had once been a successful journalist, but later suffered a severe mental health crisis. When Steinem was still a child, her mother became increasingly unable to work or care for herself. After her parents separated, the responsibility gradually fell on Gloria. By about the age of 10, she had become her mother’s primary carer.Yet there was another side to her childhood. Her father encouraged her curiosity and treated her opinions seriously. Steinem remembered him as a charming, restless man who taught her to see uncertainty not only as something frightening, but as a possibility. His attitude stayed with her: if tomorrow was unknown, it might also bring something wonderful. She told The Guardian in 2005: “He was such a wonderful, different man. He asked me what I thought, valued my opinion. His favourite story about me was, I was four or five, and he took me to a little store somewhere and I asked him for a nickel. He asked what it was for, and I said, ‘You can give it to me, or you cannot give it to me, but you cannot ask me what it is for.’ And he said, ‘You’re absolutely right,’ and gave me the nickel. I have friends who had cruel and distant fathers, who are drawn to cruel and distant men, and I thank God for my father.” Is she drawn to men like her father? “Until I think about it, yes. He was a big influence.”Perhaps the strongest thread connecting Steinem’s childhood, her time in India and the activist she later became was her early belief that people deserved to be heard. The girl who learned to question, observe and think independently grew into a woman who spent her life challenging systems that kept others unheard.
