Gloria Steinem’s death put the country’s division on full display.
With Wednesday’s passing of the nation’s most prominent pioneer of modern feminism, liberal news organizations circled the wagons around a progressive icons.
On the other end of the political spectrum, though — the other half of the country– things were considerably different, even if the establishment media didn’t report it.
The facts of Steinem’s life are reasonably well known. Her undercover report about life as a Playboy Club hostess in 1963 made her bones in the journalistic world. Her founding of Ms. magazine, which debuted in 1972, established a publication uniquely dedicated to the spread of orthodox feminist propaganda.
And her decades-long career in politics never veered from its leftist arc before her death at 92, even if it meant deviating from her supposed devotion to the principle of women’s rights.
She was infamous for defending then-President Bill Clinton against sexual harassment allegations in 1998 — basically the same behavior feminism was supposedly founded to protest. She later admitted she wouldn’t have written the same thing in a different era.
She embraced the transgender movement that is so bent on erasing real gains women have made in society since Steinem’s career started.
Has feminism damaged society?
Yet judging by the establishment media coverage, the only question raised by Steinem’s death was just how great she really was.
On the left-hand side, with its typically liberal bent, The Associated Press called her a “fierce and eloquent advocate for equality.”
The New York Times hailed her as a “feminist champion who personified the modern women’s movement” — and rounded up a gaggle of the usual suspects among liberal talking heads to back it up:
Hillary Clinton was there; Bill was oddly missing for some reason. (Have they discovered shame in Chappaqua?)
Joe and Jill Biden were quoted; the parasitical duchess formerly known as Megan Markle was even included. (Steinem was reportedly a big fan of the almost universally despised Megan, which speaks volumes about Steinem’s political judgment.)
And that’s pretty much the deal everywhere. Virtually every voice in the establishment told a different iteration of the same story: Steinem changed life for women for the better; she changed society for the better; heck, she made the whole damn world better.
But there were many, many voices who weren’t being quoted by the mainstream media outlets and their pre-written obituary homages.
Those voices pointed out how Steinem’s advocacy for abortion — her own career in activism started with an illegal abortion in the 1950s, according to the AP — had helped lead to the deaths of untold numbers of children still in their mothers’ wombs.
BREAKING: Gloria Steinem is dead at 92!!
I’m sure the media will spend the day celebrating her as a feminist icon. I won’t.
She helped sell generations of women a worldview that treated motherhood and traditional womanhood as shackles while presenting abortion as… pic.twitter.com/peMkBjwUqK
— Bethany O’Leary (@BethanyForTruth) September 3, 2026
They talked of how the “feminism” Steinem championed had damaged the family structure — the building block of any society.
Gloria Steinem was sold to America as a champion for women.
I see something very different.
Her brand of radical feminism didn’t elevate womanhood. It attacked motherhood, mocked traditional families, devalued femininity, and convinced generations that becoming more like men… pic.twitter.com/UB0olUozIL
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 3, 2026
And they talked about the excesses that have followed the “women’s liberation” movement — scare quotes definitely intended — and how it’s playing out in the real world 60-odd years later.
Today’s feminism is not the movement Gloria Steinem helped create. It is harsher, more obsessed with abortion, and far less interested in children. She helped that happen and she did not walk it back.
The early version was jobs, pay, and women being taken seriously. The later… pic.twitter.com/ThoBqJeMnq
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) September 3, 2026
Those voices, by and large, won’t get a platform in the establishment media coverage of Steinem’s passing. They won’t get prominent play in the coming days.
But they’re out there in the public conversation — sharp displays of the divisions surrounding Steinem’s legacy.
And if the initial coverage is any indication — with controversy relegated to vague, euphemistic head nods buried deep in journalistic “appreciations,” the mainstream media outlets that adored Steinem and the progressive politics she represented are going to do everything they can to blur them out.
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