A Law & Liberty essay argues Gloria Steinem’s brand of second‑wave feminism expanded women’s legal and cultural freedom but also encouraged an individualist ethic that, the author says, has harmed women and society.
The movement’s central aim—letting women “do what she wants to do with her life”—advanced legal equality but, the essay contends, promoted personal choices that devalued traditional family interdependencies.
Matthew highlights Steinem’s young‑adult abortion decision as emblematic of a life choice that shaped her activism and the movement’s priorities.
Popular culture, notably Disney princess stories such as The Little Mermaid, is presented as reflecting and normalizing an ideal of feminine escape and self‑centered ambition.
# Summary
Elizabeth Grace Matthew reviews Jill Filipovic's recent tribute to Gloria Steinem and offers a critical take on Steinem's legacy. She accepts Filipovic's central point that Steinem helped found second‑wave feminism and that this movement secured important legal and cultural gains for women. At the same time, Matthew argues that the movement's emphasis on individual choice—captureable in the phrase "do what she wants to do with her life"—has had negative consequences for women and for social cohesion.
# Background
Filipovic's essay, which Matthew calls one of the most incisive tributes, frames Steinem's life around a decisive early choice: at 23, Steinem ended a pregnancy and later devoted much of her life to securing legal access to abortion. Filipovic treats that moment as brave and transformative. Matthew accepts the factual outline but draws different judgments about its cultural meaning.
# Main arguments
Matthew separates two claims. First, she affirms the justice of women's legal equality and the value of recognizing women as full moral agents. Second, she argues that Steinem's particular iteration of feminism prioritized personal autonomy in a way that made family interdependence and traditional roles morally neutral or even suspect.
Matthew's core critique is ethical and cultural. She asks readers to consider how we judge similar behavior in men. If a man abandoned an engagement and a child to pursue personal ambitions, common labels would be selfish or irresponsible. Yet, she contends, comparable conduct by women has been recast as heroic within the cultural frame Steinem helped popularize. That double standard, she claims, lowers expectations for women's responsibility and reshapes popular norms about parenting, marriage, and community.
# Cultural examples
To illustrate cultural effects, Matthew discusses Disney films—especially The Little Mermaid. She describes Ariel's central desire to leave the sea for the human world as a shallow, escapist ambition that Disney frames as admirable. Matthew argues that Ariel and other princesses (Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas) exemplify a template: a vague yearning to "live the life I want" becomes sufficient moral justification for abandoning existing obligations.
She contrasts that portrayal with male heroes in Disney narratives, where heroism is earned through sacrifice and concrete contribution. That contrast, she says, exposes a gendered difference in how cultural stories reward action versus escape.
# Assessment and implication
# Takeaway for readers
The feminist icon thought many women would carry on her legacy. But at an unsteady time for feminism, how will the movement carry on?
Entrepreneur Stacey Boyd, who knew and collaborated with Gloria Steinem, reflects on the organizing principles behind Steinem’s extraordinary life and legacy. Boyd considers what Steinem’s leadership can teach business leaders and philanthropists about listening and building the infrastructure for movements to outlast
Gloria Steinem, the pioneering feminist journalist, activist and cofounder of Ms. magazine, died Sept. 2, 2026, at age 92. For more than half a century, Steinem helped bring feminist ideas, voices and movements into the mainstream through journalism, organizing and activism—and helped build Ms. into what it remains tod
In 2005, Gloria Steinem—71, aviators on, stabbing at poached eggs in a brunch-mobbed diner—explained why women get more radical as they get older, and what she'd tell her younger self.
<img width="1024" height="682" src="https://i0.wp.com/washingtonmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26246767581068-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Gloria Steinem speaks on the political subjugation of women and the importance of organizing a
This week, Gloria Steinem died at the age of 92, peacefully at her home in New York City and surrounded by people who loved her. We will miss her at Ms. I will miss her personally. There were parts of Gloria’s childhood that mirrored my own. For a period of time, Gloria did not attend school because she was tending to
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