When I last met Gloria Steinem, I talked with her about my late great-great aunt, Miriam Michelson, who was a “Gloria Steinem” of the late 1890’s early 1900’s. Both of them forcefully and yet elegantly empowered women to seize their political, cultural and economic power.
Aunt Miriam was a journalist, author, and activist for women’s rights who played a pivotal role in securing ratification of women’s rights to vote, the 19th Amendment – a right we women prepare to exercise in force in a few weeks in one of the most consequential midterm elections in history. 
Both women used their access to raise the voices of other strong women who were elevating women’s rights. There are myriad examples from both women, including Steinem’s work in New York Magazine and founding Ms. magazine; Miriam’s coverage of and interviews with women at the California Women’s Congress in 1895[1] and her interviews with Susan B. Anthony including in 1895[2]; and Miriam Michelson penned “The Superwoman” novella, which became source material for “Wonder Woman” comics[3]. The first issue of Ms. magazine featured Wonder Woman on the cover too, and she has graced that place in history five times so far, including on the 45th anniversary issue.
Gloria Steinem, like Miriam Michelson, proved that “women journalists, in playing up gender and the feminist perspective, created new paradigms of ‘womanhood,’ which they publicized to readers on a daily basis,”[4] as Lori Harrison-Kahan, Ph.D., described Miriam in her ground-breaking book “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson” (2019)).
Gloria Steinem took the paradigm-shifting efforts – that began with women like Aunt Miriam, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and the suffragists – and put them on steroids, challenging the status quo. “Journalism offered Michelson” – and Steinem – “opportunities for adventure and a space in which she could operate outside the constraints of traditional femininity,” as Harrison-Kahan put it.[5]
Steinem lived through women joining the workforce in droves to replace men who went off to fight World War II and the fascists (I’ll leave that parallel to our time for another piece). She lived through women’s being pushed back into the home after men returned from the war. She graduated from Smith College (magna cum laude) in 1956[6], in the midst of the “Father Knows Best” era when women’s roles were still primarily seen in the home.
But, in vintage Steinem fashion, she leveraged her wit, intelligence, eloquent writing, beauty, piercing insights and dogged reporting to bring the smart-independent woman’s perspective to issues, demonstrating – as Aunt Miriam did – that women have many other career and life options. Steinem took her fight for women’s economic and political rights into the middle of the arena with first her ground-breaking reporting for outlets like New York magazine and then by cofounding Ms. magazine in 1971 to give women’s voices their own platform. The rest is history.
Among Steinem’s (and Aunt Miriam’s) many lessons, these pop to the surface:
- Never give up – Steinem was nothing if not persistent
- Leverage the system to shift it – Learn the system and go inside (at least for a time), using your voice, influence and resources to shift it as much as you can from the inside.
- Create a new system when the existing one doesn’t work for you – When the existing system is not shifting enough.
- Be a bridge-builder, take people of all stripes along – Use your wits, humor and style to reach people you may not realize are reachable.
- Engage people with stories – People relate to what others have endured.
- Show the facts – Numbers, data, what’s really going on matters.
- Use your words, actions, talents and resources – Every “asset” you have matters, which Steinem herself wrote about in her forthcoming new memoir,[7] including your voice, and financial and professional resources.
The “great wealth transfer” will likely accelerate Steinem’s paradigm shift for women
Women are about to inherit what I call a “tsunami” of assets in the great wealth transfer: by 2040, women are predicted to control over 50% of global wealth for the first time in history[8]. This is because $124 trillion is moving from the silent generation and Baby Boomers to women, Millennials and Gen Zers over the next 20-30 years.
As I write in my forthcoming book, “Economic Tsunami” (due out in the spring), this economic shift will accelerate and strengthen women’s economic, political and cultural power and influence. Women can heed the lessons from Gloria Steinem – and Miriam Michelson, and the equally extraordinary Dolly Parton, who also used her talents and resources to empower women and recently passed away. Women can leverage their assets, as well as their education and professional experience, to make that paradigm shift these women began more solid and permanent.
We can leverage our resources today.
I realize I’ve been doing this with my own journalism, elevating and empowering women through Electric Ladies Podcast and my hundreds of articles in Forbes, and previously in HuffPost and various other media – and throughout my business and speaking career.
The biggest lesson from both Steinem and Aunt Miriam is vote – early, in person if at all possible, and for your own rights and economic power. Never give up.
Thank you, Gloria Steinem, for shifting the paradigm of what’s possible for women.
For more:
Gloria Steinem Created New ‘Paradigms of Womanhood’ – in Medium
Footnotes/Sources:
[1] The San Francisco Call, May 21m 1895, 4 – “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson,” Wayne State University Press, 2019))” p.146
[2] Arthur McEwen’s Letter, May 25, 1895, 9 – “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson,” Wayne State University Press, 2019))” p. 153
[3] The Smart Set, no. 4 1912, “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson,” Wayne State University Press, 2019))” p.55
[4] “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson,” Wayne State University Press, 2019))” p.14
[5] “The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson,” Wayne State University Press, 2019))” p.14
[6] https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/gloria-steinem
[7] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/everything-we-do-matters/688514/
[8] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanmichelson2/2025/07/31/women-are-inheriting-trillions-this-is-a-seismic-power-shift/
