On September 3, 2026, the day after she died, the reliably leftist New York Times honored Gloria Steinem with a photo layout looking back on her career. One of those pictures showed her lifting a glass of champagne with actress Jane Fonda, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Pat Mitchell, the former president of PBS.
A Gallery of Failure
That photo is a more appropriate way to remember Gloria Steinem than the Old Gray Lady on Times Square could have known. The four represented separate parts of a long-standing attempt to build a feminist utopia (sometimes referred to as second-wave feminism) that lies in ruins today.
Miss Fonda enjoyed fame in the movies for a time, but is largely forgotten except by those who still revile her for her trip to North Vietnam in July 1972. Hillary Clinton was, briefly, the most powerful woman in America when she served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Today, if she is mentioned at all, it is usually for her criticism of the man who defeated her for the presidency in 2016. That same president withdrew federal funding from the network once led by Pat Mitchell.
The story for all of them is largely the same—power gained, power misused, power lost, oblivion.
The Short-Lived Power of Fame
That is certainly true of the first member of the jubilant New York Times quartet to go to her grave.
There was a time when Gloria Steinem was recognized wherever she went. From the late sixties through the eighties, she was one of the leading doyennes of the “women’s liberation” movement. There was not a single event the movement put on in which she was not the center of attention. No doubt, the Times could have constructed a much larger photo essay on her life; they must have thousands in their files. Of course, she was one of the leading promoters of abortion.
This article will not list her “accomplishments,” because that would be to eulogize someone who cheapened the value of womanhood, the family, and humanity in general.
Ashes to Ashes
It is amazing how quickly the “permanent” changes that Miss Steinem and her ilk imposed on the nation and society faded. The thing they wanted most, the so-called Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), met with defeat, largely because women, organized by Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly, said they didn’t want it. Another feminist “victory,” Roe v. Wade, now lies in well-deserved ashes, buried by many of those same women, as well as their daughters and granddaughters. Title IX, which opened up the whole world of female sports, is now crashing against rocks hewn by the transgender activists who currently borrow Gloria Steinem’s tactics. Many thousands of women went to college to earn degrees in Women’s Studies and related fields, and today find those degrees useless, either for intellectual advancement or in the job market. Millions of women gave up family for mediocre careers and now find themselves alone and remorseful.
Don’t expect the Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle or their imitators around the nation to tell the stories of the decline of second-wave feminism. They are too busy trying to stuff their papers in the cracks of a rapidly disintegrating movement.
Dust to Dust
Women are beginning to see that the cohabitation movement has left them either alone or suffering to support tens of thousands of “fatherless” children. After two generations of failing to “have it all,” women are now realizing that a great career and a supportive family are impossible to attain in a single lifetime. Liberal journalists, some inspired by Miss Steinem, diminish the Tradwife phenomenon, but it is, despite their disdain, growing.
Miss Steinem’s legacy is one of failure. She failed because women were not attracted to her program. She failed because no young women have taken her place. She failed because the family is so natural that it cannot be suppressed.
Photo Credit: © Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 4.0)
