HILLEL ITALIE - AP National Writer
•9/3/2026
NEW YORK (AP) — Gloria Steinem died just weeks before the release of her latest memoir, “An Unexpected Life.” She was 92, but gave no indication in the book that it would be her last.
“As I write this, I’m both older than I ever imagined I would become and happier than I ever imagined I could be,” she wrote in the introduction. “I’ve been rewarded with friends who are my chosen family. I have trusted friends in other countries, and we strive to be safe and free, and share hopes for a peaceful democracy in the world.”
Steinem added that she planned to live to 100.
“An Unexpected Life” follows such previous Steinem memoirs as “Revolution from Within” and “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.” In the latest book, she looks back to her childhood in Ohio in the 1940s and ’50s, when women were expected to marry and raise children. It continues through her political awakening, her rise in the second-wave feminist movement and her stature as an inspiration to young people, who in turn inspired her.
Here are some highlights from the upcoming memoir, scheduled for publication Sept. 22:
"Being in that country shattered Western romantic illusions with little ceremony, but it replaced them with new impressions far more real and less easily forgotten. As I learned once I was there, many Americans seem to have skipped from a sketchy knowledge of ancient India to a misunderstanding of its diversity. The teachings of Gandhi introduced me to nonhierarchical thinking, which I came to learn was the most common way of thinking in much of the rest of the world, too."
“My favorite model of human communication is sitting with others around a kitchen table or in a living room, anywhere we can gather equally and communicate in person with all five senses: a consciousness-raising group, a rap group, a book club, a quilting bee, or a talking circle. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a place where one can tell the truth, say an ‘unsayable’ thing, and hear other people say, ‘You feel like that? I thought only I felt like that!’”
“Terry Southern, a popular author and co-author of ‘Candy,’ a pornographic novel, was very visible on the New York social scene. I didn’t know him well, but for some reason we were both awaiting a mutual friend in that friend’s office, talking and sitting next to each other on the couch. He reached over, took hold of my wrists so I couldn’t move, and tried to kiss me. Without a moment’s thought, I bit him on the cheek. If you haven’t been trained to submit, you are like a cat; you just respond.”
“Other leaps of consciousness have actually been quite funny, like figuring out that despite the term man-hating lesbian — which I hope and believe is long forgotten — it may be the women who live with men who are more likely to hate them.”
“The worst audience for me has always been establishment males, and the worst circumstance has been one in which I have to convince them on behalf of some very important but unpopular issue. In those moments, I feel responsible not only for myself but also for the people who can’t be there but should be represented.”
“Of course, I do have regrets. For one, I spent way too much time doing what was expected of me, and not enough doing what I loved. Given my generation, I also grew up assuming that I would have to marry my identity, not become it. This scary idea caused me to put off marriage and to live a temporary life. Not until my forties did I begin to see that a different kind of life was possible, one in which I wasn’t bound to fulfill my husband’s dreams and depend on him financially. I learned that the work I loved could also create the future I wanted.”
“People often ask me how I stay hopeful. I always explain that hope is a form of planning. I think about twenty, thirty, even fifty years ago and the leaps of consciousness I’ve experienced because of the women’s movement. Some of what we dreamed of decades ago is now really here.”
