The Imperial Icon: Why Gloria Steinem’s Feminism is Not Mine

Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 3.0

I guess I have finally become the “feminist killjoy” Sara Ahmed exhorted us to be. Except I have turned the affect on its head: my anger is not directed solely at misogynistic men or their female accomplices. Rather, the object of my ire is establishment feminism itself and the elite women who serve as its handmaidens.

While many feminists—across various theoretical orientations—continue to wax lyrical about the neoliberal, imperialist-adjacent icon Gloria Steinem, I am sitting here astonished by the uncritical idol worship she still inspires.

What is most puzzling is the refusal by mainstream feminists—some of whom I otherwise admire—to call Steinem out for the CIA-funded counter-insurgency work she directed between 1958 and 1962, which her defenders excuse as a youthful folly. But this was not a passive association; it was a deliberate operation designed to create havoc at socialist World Youth Festivals in Vienna and Helsinki. And Steinem was nor only charged with directing it, she never expressed any regret at her role or affiliation with the CIA in later years.

When the left-wing magazine Rampartsi exposed the river of secret CIA money flowing into the National Student Association in 1967, Steinem actually defended her role. She claimed she was never pressured to spy and viewed her government handlers as “liberal and far-sighted” actors providing a platform to fight totalitarianism. But break down that self-defense, and the reality is clear: Steinem directed over 100 American students to disrupt international gatherings with rowdy behavior that passed muster as Pax Americana. She was, unequivocally, a recruit for American hegemony at the height of the Cold War.

Apologists treat the limits of second-wave liberal feminism as a minor flaw, asking: What movement doesn’t have limits? But how exactly does that shrug let Steinem off the hook for her embeddedness in a movement that was milque-toast at best, and actively co-opted at worst? To claim that criticizing Steinem merely feeds into misogynistic impulses is a massive red herring.

There is feminism, and then there is feminism.

Consider Gertrude Bell, who advanced elite white women’s independence at a time when women weren’t even allowed into Oxford (she was the first to graduate). Bell built regional administrative institutions across the Middle East, but what her brilliance stabilized and legitimized was British imperial control over Arab territory and resources. When I discussed Bell with students at Princeton when i recently taught there as Visiting Professor–in my course “Spies of Empire/Empire of Spies”–they flatly refused to capitulate to “civility politics.” They refused, in other words, to grant Bell laurels just because she was “kind” to the natives in Iraq, or because she exemplified an individualistic “empowerment” ethos.

This is the exact root of the Corporate “Girlboss” syndrome—a legacy shared by Steinem, Hillary Clinton, and historically, Gertrude Bell. It is a framework that successfully elevates individual white women (along with Black decoys like Condoleezza Rice) to positions of immense global power. Girlboss feminism does not dismantle oppressive systems; it validates, manages, and polishes the face of global exploitation, military intervention, and economic imperialism.

No, this imperial feminism—of which Gloria Steinem was the palatable, media-friendly face—is not for me. Generations of women have been effectively brainwashed by the liberal orthodoxy of Ms. magazine, functioning much like the New York Times of the feminist world.

I vividly recall being at a small dinner party in a wealthy apartment on Central Park West. The host was a moneyed women’s libber who championed this exact brand of faux-feminism. Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan were there, alongside my close friend, the radical Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi. The American feminists loved Nawal for her courageous exposure of clitoridectomy, but they fundamentally failed to comprehend—or perhaps willfully ignored—her sharp critique of class, race, and empire.

Later that evening, the conversation turned to Hillary Clinton, who was then poised as the first female presidential candidate. When I stated plainly that I would not vote for her, the room immediately shifted into patronizing education mode, trying to enlighten me on her virtues. I was educated that evening, alright: everything I heard confirmed my deep distrust of these mainstream feminist icons. The problem isn’t feminism tout court; the problem is who gets counted as its icon.

Establishment defenders often try to normalize Steinem’s past by equating her CIA funding with Global South feminists accepting USAID funds for NGOs, or scholars accepting a Fulbright grant. This comparison is entirely off the mark. USAID is not the CIA, and Fulbright recipients are not recruited as covert operatives to disrupt international conferences.

Furthermore, the mainstream narrative that Steinem single-handedly engineered the structural victories of the second wave is absolute hokum. Women and labor movements had already won substantial victories by the time she emerged as a media darling. Thousands of working-class women were already suing employers for sex discrimination; abortion was legalized in New York State in 1970; and the Equal Rights Amendment passed the House in 1971 and the Senate in 1972. Countless grassroots feminists brought about these changes—Steinem merely inherited the spotlight.

The 1975 Redstockings exposé and The Wire’s analysis of Steinem’s legacy compared the promotion of Ms. magazine to CIA counter-insurgency tactics, creating reformist “parallel” structures. Records showed Steinem’s organization compiled dossiers on student attendees, and early writings under her name questioned structural racism. Despite later gestures toward intersectionality, the movement remained exclusionary, prompting Alice Walker to resign from Ms.over diversity concerns.

At the 1975 UN World Conference on Women in Mexico City, Global South and Arab delegates criticized Steinem and Robin Morgan (who passed away shortly after Steinem) for rejecting anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist frameworks, viewing “global sisterhood” as a cover for cultural imperialism. Steinem’s persistent Zionism, support for establishment politicians like the Clintons, and silence on Gaza (she never called out the genocide for what it is)–further cement her legacy as a champion of imperial rather than liberating feminism. While acknowledging her role in early visibility of issues like bodily autonomy and labor rights, her structural impact on global solidarity remains profoundly negative.

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a Visiting Professor at Princeton University and a Distinguished Scholar at Montclair State University. Her latest book is Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Though it’s Women Singers. She can be reached at [email protected]