Hillary Clinton ‘heartsick’ as Steinem, ‘architect’ of women’s equality, dies

Gloria Steinem, the Voice Behind a Century of Women’s Liberation, Dies at 92

Provpnadvice.com – Gloria Steinem, the journalist-turned-activist whose decades of advocacy helped reshape how American women understood their own rights, passed away Wednesday at her residence in New York City. She was 92. Her death prompted an immediate and deeply personal response from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who described herself as “heartsick” upon learning of the loss.

Clinton spoke during a Thursday phone interview on “CBS Mornings,” joined by co-host Gayle King, and addressed Steinem directly by her first name.

“Oh, Gayle, I’m heartsick, as I think everyone who not only knew her but followed her, was inspired and challenged by her.”

The former first lady framed Steinem’s life work not as a single-issue campaign but as a foundational project. She called Steinem one of the architects responsible for building the entire structural framework of women’s equality in American public life.

“I mean, tearing down those obstacles to young women being able to participate where their talents and hard work took them.”

A Legacy Measured in Generations

Clinton traced Steinem’s influence across multiple arenas of public life. She pointed to the astronaut Sally Ride, noting that Steinem’s advocacy made it possible for a woman to reach that milestone. She cited the passage of Title IX, the federal law guaranteeing equal access to sports and academics for girls, crediting Steinem’s voice as a force behind the women in Congress who championed the legislation. She also invoked the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, clarifying that while Steinem was not on the bench when the ruling was handed down, her sustained activism and public voice sat behind the momentum that produced it.

“And she wasn’t on the Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was decided, but her voice and her activism was behind that, and with all the setbacks that we’ve seen over the last decade or so, I want her voice to remain in our heads.”

Clinton also recalled Steinem’s personal commitment to Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Clinton said she had come to know both women and remembered Steinem speaking about what women had accomplished over millennia by choosing to come together, collaborate, and improve shared conditions of life.

The “Signal Fire” Metaphor

In one of the most striking passages of her remarks, Clinton invoked a concept Steinem had developed: the idea of signal fires. She described how, in older traditions, people would light a fire on one mountain to signal to another that something was about to happen or that people needed to gather.

“She had this concept of signal fires, where people would signal by setting a fire on one mountain to the other mountain that something was going to happen or we need to get together. I’m trying to think of Gloria as an eternal signal fire. I really do.”

Clinton characterized Steinem’s activism as fundamentally optimistic, calling that optimism “a moral choice” rather than a naïve assumption.

From Journalist to Institution-Builder

Steinem entered journalism in 1963, reporting on Playboy magazine under publisher Hugh Hefner and profiling John Lennon of The Beatles. Later in that same decade, she encountered women speaking publicly in defense of abortion rights. She later told The Associated Press in 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, that those early encounters marked “the beginning of activism for me.”

“Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy.”

In 1972, Steinem founded Ms. Magazine, a publication that grew its subscriber base steadily over subsequent decades and continues to operate today under the Feminist Majority Foundation. The magazine became a defining voice of the second-wave feminist movement, covering everything from workplace discrimination to reproductive autonomy to cultural representation.

Backlash, Ridicule, and Ultimate Recognition

The visibility Steinem commanded drew fierce opposition. In 1990, a woman phoned Larry King’s talk show on CNN and told Steinem to “rot in hell” for supposedly ruining “the beautiful American family.” Earlier, former President Richard Nixon had been recorded in the Oval Office mocking her magazine. Steinem responded at a 1972 National Press Club event by labeling Nixon “the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon.”

Decades later, that same political establishment offered the highest civilian honor in the country. In 2013, former President Barack Obama presented Steinem with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“Because of her work across America and around the world, more women are afforded the respect and opportunities that they deserve but she also changed how women thought about themselves.”

Steinem’s death closes a chapter that spans more than sixty years of public life. From her early reporting in the 1960s through the founding of a magazine that gave millions of women a shared vocabulary for their grievances, to her continued public commentary on reproductive rights and gender equity well into her nineties, her career functioned as both a mirror and a lever for American feminism. Clinton’s “signal fire” metaphor captures the essential question her passing raises: whether the momentum she helped ignite will continue to burn, or whether the next generation will allow the flame to gutter out amid the setbacks she herself warned against.