Gloria Steinem

US feminist icon Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92. "Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her," her foundation said in a statement posted on Instagram.

Before becoming a leading figure in the women's rights movement, Steinem cut her teeth in journalism in the 1960s, denouncing the inequalities women endured at a time when many in the US still needed their husband's approval to open a bank account. She came to prominence in 1963 with an expose of the pervasive sexism faced by cocktail waitresses at New York's Playboy Club.

She credited her awakening to feminist activism in 1969, at a meeting where women described the ordeal of having an abortion. "It made some sense of my own experience. I had had an abortion and had never told anyone," she later recounted. The London doctor who gave her an abortion in 1957, when it was still illegal, made her promise two things: "First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life."

Ms Magazine

In the 1970s, she founded Ms Magazine and the National Women's Political Caucus, and organized the first National Women's Conference in Houston. Her good looks, miniskirts and brief experience as a Playboy Bunny were used against her in an attempt to undermine her credibility. The fact that she remained single and childless was also weaponized.

At 66, she married businessman David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale. Asked why she had changed her position on single life, she said: "I didn't change. Marriage changed." Steinem was given the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. "Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor," her foundation said.