The trouble with putting people on a pedestal is that their follies tend to get magnified. So it was with Gloria Steinem, the groundbreaking feminist activist whose death at 92 was announced Thursday. But even those who find her work for the CIA projecting American ideas during the Cold War problematic cannot begrudge her formidable work for women’s causes. Her activism, from undercover reporting as a Playboy Bunny to championing laws against discrimination and sexual violence, inspired women around the world. She admittedly learnt about grassroots activism during the years she spent in India in the late 1950s on a fellowship, when she saw Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement up close. On her passing, the world would do well to reassess what it still needs to do to bridge the gender gap.
