...It has taken me many years of traveling as a feminist speaker and organizer to understand that I was wrong about women; at least, about women acting on their own behalf…If student years were the peak time of rebellion and openness to change for men, then the same must be true for women. In fact, a decade of listening to every kind of women's group…has convinced me that the reverse is more often true. Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age....

American journalist, editor, and feminist. Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, to a father who was an itinerant antique-dealer and a mother whose mental instability Steinem would later attribute in part to sexism. After receiving a B.A. from Smith College, Steinem spent two years studying in India and returned to the United States fiercely committed to social justice. While working as a freelance journalist, she helped to found New York magazine in 1968; in 1971, by then an influential spokesperson for the women's movement, Steinem became founding editor of Ms. magazine. Her books include two collections of her essays, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983) and Moving Beyond Words: Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender (1995); Marilyn: Norma Jean (1986), a biography of Marilyn Monroe; Revolution from Within: A Book of Self Esteem (1992); and, as editor, The Reader's Companion to Women's History (1999). See also gloriasteinem.com.