Earlier this year, WNBA players signed a historic CBA that pays the league’s top stars a supermax of $1.4 million. It was a landmark moment for women’s basketball, but the fight for women to be valued equally did not begin on a basketball court. For generations, women have had to challenge the systems that told them they deserved less, and few voices pushed that fight further than Gloria Steinem.
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Steinem, the legendary journalist and feminist activist who spent more than five decades fighting for equality, died Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 92, and her death has prompted an outpouring of tributes from across sports and beyond, with tennis icon Martina Navratilova among those remembering the woman whose work helped reshape the lives of millions.
“RIP hero!!! You made this world a better place for women – we thank you!!!! RIP, glorious Gloria!” Navratilova wrote on X.
Gloria Steinem’s work always challenged the idea that women should simply accept the limits placed on them, whether those limits existed in the workplace, at home, or in public life. So as the time of such a legendary figure comes to an end, Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve also took to X to express her gratitude.
“Thank you, Gloria Steinem, for a lifetime of devotion to equality. You paved the way for the life I live today. In whatever small way I can, I will carry the torch of equality so that the next generation of girls/women can live as you dreamed of for them,” Reeve wrote.
Reeve even quoted one of Steinem’s most powerful sayings: “’We’ll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.’”
But before Gloria Steinem became one of the most recognizable faces of the fight for equality, she was a journalist finding her voice. She began her career as a freelance writer in New York before becoming increasingly involved in the women’s liberation movement.
That journey eventually led her to help co-found Ms. magazine in the early 1970s, giving women a platform to openly discuss issues such as abortion rights, workplace discrimination, and equal pay at a time when those conversations were rarely at the center of mainstream women’s media.
Steinem also played a huge role in establishing organizations that supported women and pushed for greater female representation in politics.
Much of what women have gained since that era can now seem ordinary. Yet the battles Steinem helped bring into the mainstream continue to surface in different forms. For years, the WNBA played in the shadows of the NBA, fighting for fair compensation while receiving far less media attention. Yet the players continue to fight for greater recognition, visibility, and opportunities, demanding that their work be valued on its own terms.
And that is part of why her legacy struck such a chord with those connected to women’s sports. Journalist and author Christine Brennan, who wrote On Her Game: Caitlin Clark, remembered Steinem’s roots in Toledo, Ohio, and the family history that shaped her connection to women’s rights.
“Gloria Steinem was Toledo through and through. Born and raised. Her mother was one of the first women to work at The Blade (where I was a summer intern decades later) and her grandmother was a leading suffragist and the first woman on the Toledo Board of Education,” Brennan wrote on X.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris also recalled meeting Steinem for the first time and the support she showed to women entering politics. Harris remembered how Steinem advocated for women and offered “incredible support for women running for office.”
“Doug and I send our love and prayers to her family, friends, and all those whose lives have been touched by her decades of work,” Harris added.
For Gloria Steinem, the fight for equality was never a finished project. She continued writing, speaking, and organizing well into her 90s, insisting that the torch should not simply be passed but used to light the way for those coming next. So as women across sports and outside sports continue fighting for what once seemed impossible, that torch remains firmly in motion.