‘Sex before marriage and a job after’: 9 Gloria Steinem quotes about work, empathy, liberation, and more

In her 2015 memoir My Life on the Road, Gloria Steinem talks about the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston as a “before or after” in her life. Today, the countless people who looked up to Steinem mark their own before and after, a world with and, sadly, without her. Gloria Steinem, the groundbreaking feminist writer and activist, passed away on Wednesday, September 2, at the age of 92. According to an announcement posted to her social media, Steinem died peacefully at her New York City home of more than 50 years surrounded by loved ones. Born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem grew up to be a journalist. It was this profession that led her to a “speak out” in 1969, at which women discussed their illegal abortions four years before Roe v. Wade changed the law of the land. The event ignited a change in Steinem and soon she was taking part in protests for women’s equality, helping create shelters for women, and fighting for reproductive rights. She dedicated My Life on the Road to Dr. John Sharpe of London, who took the “considerable risk of referring” 22-year-old Steinem for an abortion at a time when they were illegal in the U.K. for any reason other than the healt…