WITH HER eyeliner, long locks and short skirts, Gloria Steinem wasn’t what most Americans pictured when they imagined a feminist activist. They had been led to believe “women’s libbers” were all dowdy, with hairy legs and frown lines. Ms Steinem, though, was glamorous. She was “trim” and “undeniably female”, marvelled one interviewer; she had “legs worthy of her mini-skirts, and a brain that keeps conversation lively”. She was funny, too. “The truth will set you free,” she said, “but first it will piss you off.” Weren’t feminists meant to be angry and humourless?
Ms Steinem was baffled by the public’s obsession with her appearance. But her good looks proved useful. In her early days as a journalist in New York in the 1960s, they allowed her to go undercover as a Playboy bunny and describe the grim physical examinations, stringent code of conduct and restrictive costume (“the boning in the waist would have made Scarlett O’Hara blanch”). Her beauty brought media opportunities, which she used to bring attention to issues such as abortion and equal pay. And it made it a lot harder for those who sought to caricature feminist causes as the gripes of a load of disaffected spinsters. Women wanted to be like her—and they wanted to hear what she had to say.
