Gloria Steinem's posthumous memoir leaves us with these life lessons - USA Today
In her last written work, Gloria Steinem remarked: "I still expect to have many years ahead of me."
The feminist icon died at 92 on Sept. 2, just weeks before her memoir “An Unexpected Life” was set to release. Out now from Random House, it’s a sobering read on Steinem’s philosophies and community, particularly because she was still so forward-looking.
Though it’s billed as a memoir, Steinem is not the main character. In this essay collection, Steinem highlights the women who influenced her own beliefs and the voices often left out of the conversation. It’s a structure that supports what she said in an interview for Netflix’s “Famous Last Words”: “I hope I wasn’t the face of the feminist movement.”
In the final essay, Steinem reflects on her life and offers advice for readers young and old.
“Though I’m past the age of average life expectancy, I don’t think about mortality much – just enough to make sure that the rooms and books I love will be well used after I am gone,” she writes. “I’m not sure there is an afterlife, at least one that is longer than the memories of those who love us. I didn’t grow up with a religious idea of heaven or hell. It seems motive enough to be fully alive in the present, and to leave positive memories behind.”
“An Unexpected Life” is a wide-ranging essay collection, with stories from Steinem’s childhood to meditations on change. Here are some of the lessons she leaves behind:
Community was crucial to Steinem, whose New York City brownstone operated as a gathering space for decades. In “An Unexpected Life,” Steinem chronicles some of her favorite living room "talking circles," from John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early 1970s (which inspired the founding of “Ms.” magazine) to teenage aspiring tradeswomen in 2021 to female leaders in artificial intelligence in 2025.
As Steinem reminds readers regularly, change grows “from the bottom up like a tree" by listening and learning from others. She even offers a set of guidelines for creating these spaces, like sitting in circles to remove hierarchy and listening as much as you talk.
“But being present communally allows us to love and be loved, to understand and be understood, to know that we are part of the human community,” she writes. “There is nothing more basic or radical than telling the truth and listening to other people do so.”
Growing up, Steinem was a caregiver for her mother, who battled mental illness and addiction. She describes herself as “a small person looking after a big person.” The two shared a bed in a small, rat-infested apartment in the suburbs of East Toledo, Ohio.
“Hope is a form of planning,” writes Steinem, whose activism took root after a fellowship in India, where she learned about nonviolent protest and community led social change. As a freelance reporter, she was often relegated to “women’s topics” and discouraged from political stories. She gained national attention for her 1963 article "I Was a Playboy Bunny," in which she recounted posing as a waitress at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club, changing her name and donning a costume to expose the work conditions and sexualization of women in the role.
Eventually, she was inspired to make media that centered women’s perspectives. The first standalone issue of Ms. magazine sold out nationwide in eight days. Steinem’s activism snowballed from there, campaigning for female political candidates and testifying before the Senate on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. She cofounded the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center in the United States.
“I hope you leave these pages with more belief in the innovation that blooms at the grass roots, the smartness of ordinary people, a majority consciousness more enlightened than most leaders, and a history that not only stretches behind us but is always alive beneath our feet,” she writes.
Steinem was often seen as the face of second-wave feminism, but she pushes back against that and instead advocates for intersectionality. Steinem writes about her concerted effort to speak alongside women of color and “declining events that were not as diverse as the movement.” Regardless, she often received more mainstream coverage than her non-white peers. Her face appeared alone on the 1971 Newsweek “The New Woman” cover, which she says she refused to be interviewed or photographed for lest it portray “the women’s movement as white.”
“Somewhere online right now, people are talking about ‘white feminism,’ and I’m trying to explain that if it’s all white, it isn’t feminism. By definition, feminism includes all women – all people,” she writes.
Steinem argues that the community you create, especially in activism, must “look like the group of people it is meant to serve” and that “to be with people of different ages, races, and experiences is a gift.”
Steinem does have some regrets, especially spending too much time doing what others expected of her rather than what she wanted to do. The older she got, the more she realized she could create a future exactly as she envisioned it, she writes.
“This is one of the gifts of age: the reward of knowing that flowers of change came from seeds you once planted or watered or carried from place to place,” she writes.
Still, she shares she’s learned as much from people younger than her as she has from her elders.
“Each part of life has unique value. No matter my own age, I have found that spending time across age groups always sparks learning. Young and old can learn equally from each other, not as mentors and mentees, but as equals who offer unique value.”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, covering buzzy releases, chatting with authors and diving into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.
