It was the relentless struggle for reproductive autonomy that catapulted Gloria Steinem into the vanguard of feminist thought, where she would indelibly shape the discourse on gender equality.

The conviction that women could not attain genuine parity without sovereignty over whether and when to bear children constituted a cornerstone of the late-1960s feminist movement—a movement Steinem came to personify until her demise at 92 on Wednesday.

The triumphs of that movement wrought a profound metamorphosis upon American culture and domestic life, precipitating an unprecedented influx of women into the labor force, even as its proponents persist in their struggle against an entrenched gender-based remuneration disparity, pervasive sexual harassment, and the conspicuous dearth of female representation within the echelons of corporate leadership and political office.

Yet Steinem lived to witness the ascendance of a formidable countermovement against her conception of feminism, as reproductive autonomy, maternity, childbearing, and prescribed gender roles were once more thrust to the epicenter of the nation’s cultural conflicts.

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, thereby abolishing the constitutional right to abortion; since then, thirteen states have enacted total or near-total prohibitions.

A further four states proscribe the procedure after approximately six weeks of gestation, a juncture frequently preceding a woman's awareness of her pregnancy.

Steinem called it a setback for democracy.

Yet for Christian conservative activists, it constituted a resounding triumph that galvanized a movement exhorting men and women to espouse conventional gender roles, whilst frequently attributing to feminism the culpability for plummeting birthrates, escalating divorce rates, and the erosion of marriage and motherhood's societal esteem.

Through a combination of policy measures and discursive framing, officials within the Trump administration—Vice President JD Vance among them—alongside influential conservative organizations, have orchestrated a concerted initiative aimed at impelling young women toward expeditious matrimony, increased fertility, and the subordination of professional ambitions to domestic imperatives.

“Feminism perpetrated a grave disservice upon women, and by extension upon men, by propagating the notion that marriage and family constitute lesser pursuits warranting deprioritization,” asserted Delano Squires, co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s report, “Saving America by Saving the Family,” which decried that “the disruptions to American family life caused by bad public policy in the 1960s were exacerbated by cultural upheavals that radically transformed social norms pertaining to sex, sexuality, marriage, children, and gender roles.”

The report, which among its various proposals advocates for the establishment of congressional investment accounts endowed with a $2,500 initial deposit for individuals who wed prior to reaching the age of 30, was co-authored by Emma Waters, a Heritage Foundation analyst who has risen to prominence as a formidable voice among young conservative Christians decrying what they perceive as a career-centric ethos engendered by feminism, to the detriment of feminine fulfillment.

In a recent article, Waters took a swipe at “Ms.” — encompassing both the honorific and the periodical established by Steinem.

“In the present era, the most profoundly countercultural act available to a woman of twenty-eight is to adopt her husband’s surname and remain receptive to the gift of motherhood,” she wrote.

Steinem herself never bore children—a decision she professed never to regret, even as she extolled it as an exemplary choice for others—and she remained unyielding in her advocacy for reproductive autonomy as a foundational pillar of women’s empowerment.

Steinem pivoted into activism in her thirties following her attendance at a 1969 meeting where women deliberated on abortion rights, and it was the harrowing testimonies she heard there that emboldened her to disclose the clandestine termination she had undergone in London at the age of twenty-two.

At the time, abortion remained proscribed across the greater part of the United States, with the Supreme Court having only recently, in its landmark 1965 ruling in *Griswold v. Connecticut*, enshrined the constitutional right to contraception.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, female labor force participation languished below the 50% threshold during that period.

The legal right to terminate a woman's employment solely on the grounds of pregnancy persisted until the advent of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978.

Financial institutions habitually demanded a male co-signatory as a precondition for women's credit card applications.

Furthermore, the congressional representation of women was starkly limited, with merely 11 female members serving at the time.

The contemporary landscape bears scant resemblance to that of yesteryear.

Approximately 58% of women aged 20 and above currently participate in the labor force, with this figure escalating to 77% among women in their prime working years, spanning ages 25 to 54.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 — championed by the scant cohort of women then holding congressional seats — rendered it unlawful to deny women credit cards and loans on the basis of sex.

Presently, 152 women serve in Congress.

Many of those hard-won entitlements, at least in principle, remain inviolable even among the most intransigent conservatives.

Squires, of the Heritage Foundation, affirmed that he would never contest the prerogative of women to hold property, access credit, or exercise the franchise and engage in gainful employment, even as he advocates for conventional gender roles.

Nonetheless, even the most audacious propositions have found amplification among those wielding authority.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for instance, recirculated a video featuring a Christian nationalist congregation in which numerous pastors advocated for the revocation of women's suffrage, precipitating considerable public indignation.

For those aligned with the religious right, feminism subverts the “godly” paradigm of a paternal figure who commands and safeguards the domestic sphere, while simultaneously exhorting women to prioritize their own aspirations over those of their spouses and offspring, as articulated by Beth Allison Barr, a professor of women’s history at Baylor University.

“It renders the two diametrically antithetical: that authentic Christian devotion precludes feminist conviction.”

Women’s advocacy groups caution that both the erosion of reproductive rights and the framing of feminism as an assault on the family are, at their core, concerted efforts to disenfranchise women and curtail their autonomy in charting their own life trajectories.

Fatima Goss Graves, chief executive of the National Women’s Law Center, contended that progressive initiatives—encompassing extended and augmented paid parental leave alongside enhanced access to affordable childcare—are fundamentally concerned with championing familial structures and facilitating the rearing of children without compelling women to relinquish their professional trajectories or economic autonomy.

“We are, in essence, embroiled in a more profound cultural contest over our national identity and the prescribed position of women within it,” asserted Goss Graves.

Notwithstanding such reversals as the overturning of *Roe v. Wade* and the still-unrealized objective of ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, Estelle Freedman, a Stanford University professor of women’s history, contends that feminism in the United States has become so profoundly entrenched within the fabric of contemporary existence that its trajectory “may be unstoppable.”

She posited that the economy, for one, now pivots on the sustained engagement of women in the labor market.

The feminist movement since the early 19th century “has gone through periods of mobilization and gains, and periods of backlash and losses,” but throughout “there has been continuous reorganization, rethinking to get stronger,” Freedman said.

Steinem, Freedman asserted, endowed the movement with indispensable continuity spanning more than half a century.

“The visibility that she’s afforded will serve to ensure that the protracted nature of this endeavor is not consigned to oblivion.

And it constitutes work that must inexorably proceed,” Freedman remarked.

In her culminating essay, published on the third of September in The New Yorker, Steinem herself pondered these reversals with a vein of optimism.

As I pen these words, the world appears to be spiraling into chaos.

A prevailing sentiment holds that the hard-won advances of our era are being systematically dismantled.

Should fortune have granted you the longevity I have enjoyed, your duty as an elder is to illuminate the distance we have traversed,” she wrote.

“Owing to this movement, the vast majority of humanity has now witnessed women serving as astronauts, union organizers, agricultural laborers, liberators, and architects of peace.

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