Gloria Steinem used glamour as a tactical asset for power
By Emilio Quesada · Reporting from Miami ·
The death of Gloria Steinem at 92 invites the usual hagiography of the "glamorous symbol" of second-wave feminism.
The death of Gloria Steinem at 92 invites the usual hagiography of the "glamorous symbol" of second-wave feminism. But to view Steinem’s image as a mere byproduct of her celebrity—or, as she herself often lamented, a distraction from her intellect—is to fundamentally misunderstand the arithmetic of power. In the world of political leverage, visibility is not a vanity; it is a breach. Steinem did not happen to be glamorous; she deployed glamour as a tactical asset to force a radical agenda into rooms that would have remained locked to a less "palatable" revolutionary.
The Aviators Were a Perimeter Fence
According to DW and Global News, Steinem’s trademark look—the blonde-streaked hair inspired by Holly Golightly and those oversized aviator glasses—was a carefully maintained brand. Steinem later claimed the glasses were "more about hiding," a phrase that suggests a desire for privacy. I read it as a desire for control. By curating a specific, high-visibility aesthetic, she managed the terms of her own engagement with the public.
The media, of course, tried to weaponize this. CBC News notes her frustration that labels like "beautiful" or "glamorous" detracted from her message, citing her observation that nobody called her beautiful until she became a public feminist in her mid-30s. She felt the label was "assigned" to her to diminish her hard work. This is the standard critique: that the patriarchy used her looks to marginalize her mind. But this view is naive. The "spectacular racehorse legs" described in a 1992 Vanity Fair profile were not a liability; they were the collateral she paid to ensure the movement had a face the American middle class couldn't stop looking at.
Eleven Days in the Bunny Suit
Steinem understood that the most effective way to dismantle a system is to first master its dress code. RTÉ recalls her 1963 undercover operation, where she spent eleven days as a Playboy bunny to write "A Bunny's Tale" for Show magazine. This wasn't just journalism; it was an intelligence operation. She didn't protest the bunny suit from the sidewalk; she donned the costume, infiltrated the organization, and used the internal data on sexist treatment and poor pay to incinerate the myth of the "Playboy" utopia from the inside.
This is the core of her method: the strategic use of femininity as a Trojan horse. She recognized that in a society governed by visual cues, the most radical ideas are often best delivered by the most conventional-looking messengers.
The WSPU Playbook of Radical Visibility
This mechanism is not new; it is the legacy of the Suffragette movement. When the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) broke away from the peaceful suffragists, they didn't just adopt "deeds, not words"—they adopted a visual strategy. The WSPU understood that to be ignored is to be defeated. They used fashion and public spectacle to command attention, turning the "revolutionary quality of impatience" into a visible, unavoidable force. Like the WSPU, Steinem understood that legitimacy is often a performance that precedes the policy.
The critics who argue that the media's focus on her appearance marginalized her intellectual contributions are missing the point. The goal was never to be "respected" by Vanity Fair; the goal was to use the platform Vanity Fair provided to shift the national consciousness.
Steinem’s legacy will be analyzed by biographers as a tension between her image and her message, but that tension was the engine of her success. She used the currency of glamour to buy a seat at the table, and once she was there, she spent that currency to rewrite the rules. She was not a victim of the gaze; she was its operator.