As tributes pour in for feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who died recently at the age of 90, the public narrative has largely settled on a glowing portrait of a woman who reshaped American life. The Associated Press called her “a potent voice of US feminism,” and the Washington Post heralded her as the “lodestar of the modern women’s movement.” But a sharply critical new essay from conservative author and Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Carrie Gress argues that the real Steinem legacy is far darker than the eulogies suggest.
In a piece published by The Daily Wire as part of its Upstream culture section, Gress — author of “The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us” — contends that Steinem was not merely one feminist among many. She was, in Gress’s telling, the “it” girl who made feminism palatable to mainstream America, and in doing so normalized a worldview that has left Western civilization corroded.
The “It” Girl of Feminism
Gress acknowledges that Steinem’s appeal was transformative — and that her star power was precisely what the movement needed. Before Steinem, Gress writes, the movement was populated by women she describes as “angry, cantankerous, and mentally ill,” citing Kate Millett, Angela Davis, and Betty Friedan as figures whose public personas made them difficult to champion. Steinem’s long blond hair, aviator glasses, and lithe figure opened doors, Gress argues, making feminism attractive to millions of American women who might otherwise have recoiled.
Not every feminist appreciated the glamour. Gress quotes prominent feminist Phyllis Chesler, who reportedly wrote: “What can I say about Gloria? Only this: My generation of feminists needed Susan B. Anthony but we got Mary Tyler Moore. We needed Harriet Tubman but we got Jane Fonda. We got the blonde, blow-dried feminist in the aviator glasses, the one in the skinny jeans, the feminist who posed in a bubble bath for People magazine.”
That comparison to beloved sitcom characters and actresses, however, was precisely the point, Gress argues. Steinem became the movement’s “high priestess,” carefully managing her image through media appearances, protests, and the pages of Ms. Magazine, which she co-founded. Her cultural longevity was remarkable — though Gress notes one misstep, a Land’s End photoshoot that outraged the brand’s family-oriented customer base and was quickly scrubbed.
The Vogue Moment and the Confession
Gress points to a particularly revealing episode as late as 2022, when Steinem — then 88 — sat down with Meghan Markle for Vogue magazine to discuss their fears after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision returned abortion policy to the democratic process. During that conversation, Steinem reflected on her own abortion as a young woman, saying, “I was working as a waitress in London waiting for my visa to India, where I had a fellowship. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. My life would’ve stopped there.”
In Gress’s reading, Steinem’s words were a rare moment of candor about what feminism demands of women. “She may have been the first to say publicly that a child would have ruined her life,” Gress writes, folding the confession into her broader critique of a movement that treats motherhood as a trap.
A Movement Built on Contempt for Men
The heart of Gress’s essay is her claim that Steinem’s real power was not her fashion sense but her “interior” — a deep embodiment of what Gress calls “the new feminist anthropology” that replaced the biblical understanding of men and women created in God’s image, meant to serve one another. Instead, Steinem promoted a vision, Gress contends, that treats men as contemptible and urges women to become like them.
She cites Steinem’s well-known aphorisms: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”; “A gender-equal society would be one where the word ‘gender’ does not exist”; and “Until the masculine role is humanized, women will tend to be much better at solving dangerous conflicts.”
Gress traces Steinem’s hostility toward men to a difficult childhood. Her father, a traveling salesman, was largely absent and provided little financial or emotional support. Young Gloria was left for months at a time to care for her mentally ill, bedridden mother — a burden, Gress says, no child should carry. That brokenness, Gress argues, made Steinem one of the “Lost Girls” — women who adopted feminism as protective armor against female vulnerability, and who then projected that agenda onto the wider culture.
The Fruits of Feminism
For Gress, the present-day consequences are measurable and dire. She cites statistics that one in four women is on some form of antidepressant, that only 25% of young women have a favorable view of men (as reported by the New Statesman), and that the West faces a “birth dearth” threatening civilization itself. “This is the real fruit of feminism and the feminist anthropology,” she writes. “It has slowly corroded civilization from the inside out.”
Gress’s essay arrives amid an outpouring of celebrity and political tributes to Steinem — from Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden to Meghan Markle and Lena Dunham — all posting photos with the icon. That reverence, she predicts, will not endure. “Future generations will likely not treat her so kindly,” Gress concludes, adding, “Truly, she was the model of everything that has betrayed the vital and beautiful nature of women and men. That’s her real legacy. May she rest in peace.”
Her essay — part of The Daily Wire’s new Upstream section for culture and lifestyle — is a deliberately contrarian intervention in what promises to be a long public reckoning with Steinem’s life and work. Whether history will agree with Gress’s assessment or with the glowing obituaries remains to be seen, but the debate over Steinem’s legacy is only beginning.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-real-legacy-of-gloria-steinem