{"id":28147,"date":"2026-09-03T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.observer.com\/2005\/12\/gloria-steinem-2\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:28:22","slug":"gloria-steinem-in-2005-observer-archive-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2026\/09\/gloria-steinem-in-2005-observer-archive-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Gloria Steinem Never Wrote a Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"
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American journalist, activist and feminist Gloria Steinem in her New York City apartment in 1990. Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Editor\u2019s note: This article was originally published on December 19, 2005. Steinem died on September 2, 2026, at her home in New York City.)<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0What is Gloria Steinem\u2019s advice to young women these days? To do \u201cwhatever they fucking well please,\u201d America\u2019s foremost feminist said, stabbing into poached eggs at a brunch-mobbed diner on a recent Sunday. Ms. Steinem, a luminous 71, still curses, looks hot and paints her nails. Extremely thin and clad in black, she was wearing her frosty gray-blond hair in a loose ponytail. She kept her aviator sunglasses on as she ate. \u201cI still care how I look,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t go out and get skin cancer by tanning any more. I mean, if I can\u2019t get dressed in 20 minutes, it\u2019s not worth the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an era when the word \u201cfeminist\u201d has been hijacked by the right wing and turned into an epithet, women are still noticeably absent from positions of power and many young women are repelled by the idea of calling themselves \u201cfeminists\u201d\u2014preferring to spend their time and energy showing off their midriffs and getting bikini waxes instead\u2014Ms. Steinem\u2019s outlook remains stubbornly positive. She said that sometimes her own generation \u201cdoesn\u2019t recognize what activism and feminism look like in the younger generation. Because my generation was more threatened by sexuality or nudity, in the sense that we felt threatened if we didn\u2019t behave in a certain ladylike way. When we see young women running around with their stomachs exposed and tattoos and whatever, we don\u2019t understand that to them, it\u2019s an expression of power.\u201d She added that she probably \u201cdismayed\u201d her own elders early on by wearing a miniskirt and a button that said \u201cCunt Power.\u201d<\/p>\n

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