biography
pronunciation:
[stiynem]
| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1934– )
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| biography:
| Writer, feminist, and social reformer, born in Toledo, Ohio, USA. After graduating from Smith College (1956), she went to India on a scholarship and stayed on to write newspaper articles and a guidebook. Determined to be a journalist, she returned to the USA and worked (1958–60) for the Independent Research Service (later revealed as secretly subsidized by the CIA). She went to New York City and began as a freelance writer, first attracting attention with her article, ‘I Was a Playboy Bunny’, an exposé based on her own undercover work in a New York City Playboy Club. She was soon publishing her articles and becoming something of a celebrity, often seen with male celebrities. She also began to write some television comedy material, and in 1968 was invited to write a column, ‘The City Politic’, for a new magazine called New York, thus beginning her career as a serious social commentator. She also became affiliated with a radical women's group, the Redstockings, and published her first overtly feminist piece, ‘After Black Power, Women's Liberation’ (1968). In 1971 she joined other prominent feminists in forming the National Women's Political Caucus and took the lead in launching Ms magazine (an insert in New York, Dec 1971, first independent issue in Jan 1972). About this time she began to come under fire from some feminists, in part because of her work with the Independent Research Service, in part because some questioned whether anyone so glamorous could be a serious feminist. But she continued on her own way, speaking out, lecturing widely, organizing various women's functions, and editing Ms until 1987. In 1986 she published Marilyn, a biographical study of Marilyn Monroe's life from a feminist perspective. She invited controversy once again with Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992) which seemed to some feminists to be a retreat from social action. |
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