Gloria Steinem Was the Godmother of Neoliberal Feminism
Gloria Steinem died this week at age 92. The establishment’s favorite “radical” feminist, Steinem worked with the CIA to promote reactionary propaganda and helped direct the women’s liberation movement into a corporate-friendly, anti-socialist direction.

It’s a shame that the women’s liberation movement was, for 50 years, personified by Gloria Steinem — someone who never really shared that movement’s emancipatory goals. (Robert R. McElroy / Getty Images)
Gloria Steinem, the establishment’s favorite radical feminist, died on September 2.
The mainstream media has gone all out in praising her, with the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times united in their adulation. The Times called her the “personification of the women’s movement” and credited her with helping to usher in “sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom.” They approvingly quote her self-description as an “entrepreneur of social change.”
For many people, she is the only radical feminist they can name, eclipsing the extraordinary women who planned and launched the successful women’s liberation movement starting in 1967.