Published Oct 12, 2026
Gloria Steinem at home in 1990. Barbara Alper / Getty Images
The late feminist icon Gloria Steinem recorded her “Famous Last Words” in February 2025 with Netflix, which released the video following her death on September 2 at age 92. In the poignant clip, Steinem advises us to get to know each other through sharing.
“Please tell your own story,” Steinem tells the camera. “This is the most important thing we can do for each other, is to know each other through stories.”
So now, it is my honor to tell you her story – in particular, Steinem’s life story with felines. You’ve heard the story of Steinem’s fight against sexism and other societal love for injustices, but there is a lighter-hearted and lesser-known Gloria Steinem story involving her lifelong love for cats.
Steinem – an acclaimed journalist and one of the highest-profile leaders of the women’s rights movement – was a proud cat lady who kept at least two as pets, and she praised the cat’s independent nature to which the feminist icon could relate.
In the 2018 book Writers and Their Cats, published in 2018 by Chronicle Books, author and artist Alison Nastasi profiled Steinem and 44 other writers who kept company with cats. Steinem shared in the picture book that her gray Persian named Magritte was the “cat of her life” and joined her feminist meetings at her New York City apartment.
“Magritte was my teacher when it comes to a strong will and self-authority,” Steinem said. “When large numbers of women came to sit in a circle for a meeting, she sat on the arm of a big chair for hours, and became an alert participant. Even people who didn’t like cats were knocked out by Magritte.”
In the early ‘70s, Steinem had a large gray shorthaired cat named Crazy Alice, who took after her strong-minded human in that she “grew into a mysterious and self-willed companion.” During an interview with Vogue for the June 1971 issue, Steinem sat with journalist Liz Smith and stroked Crazy Alice.
Floppycats, a community of more than 254K cat-loving followers on Facebook, said in a tribute to Steinem that her New York City apartment became a hub both for social justice and a sanctuary for her feline companions.
“She always knew that a truly just world is one built on empathy for all living beings, both human and animal,” the Floppycats post says. “May she rest in peace, reunited in spirit with the many quiet companions who kept her company while she changed history.”
Independence from societal expectations for women was a hallmark of Steinem’s. When people asked a younger Steinem – who married David Bale, her first and only husband, when she was 66 – why she wasn’t married, she joked: “I can’t mate in captivity.” Steinem, who founded the feminist Ms. magazine in 1971, says she strongly identified with the fiercely independent Holly Golightly lead character in the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And indeed, Holly Golightly had a cat in the movie: an orange tabby she just called “Cat,” who symbolized the character’s autonomy.
In one memorable scene, Paul Harjak tells Holly in the back of a taxi that he is in love with her and that she belongs to him. Holly rejects him, and says that people don’t belong to each other and nobody will put her in a cage. She said she and Cat, in the taxi with her, were “a couple of no-name slobs. We belong to nobody and nobody belongs to us. We don’t even belong to each other.”
Then, Holly tells the cab driver to stop, and she dumps the orange cat onto the rainy street. Poor Cat! Before we cat lovers hate Holly too much, thankfully, she feels remorse minutes later and finds Cat hiding behind crates. They had an emotional reunion in the rain during the movie’s final scene.
I can see why Steinem liked the Holly Golightly character and Cat so much, and why she was, thus, a cat person. The cat’s independent nature is part of the charm for us feline fanciers, but for non-cat people, it’s a turnoff. Steinem suggested that people, especially females, have much to learn from cats. In a famous quote, she advised people to raise self-respecting daughters by taking cues from cats: “Cats don’t let you touch them. Cats tell you what they’re going to do, and that’s that.”
Steinem wasn’t discouraging affection in relationships, but she was reminding us of the importance of consent and respect. And as we know, our cats let us know in no uncertain terms when we have breached their boundaries.
Aside from loving cats, Steinem had a deep love for all animalkind – including farm animals that suffer tremendously in the meat industry. She showed compassion by living a vegetarian lifestyle, which spared many animals. The website of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) recalls how Steinem once found out that the sponsors of a fundraising event she was planning to attend subjected primates to cruel experiences.
Steinem insisted that the company immediately be dissociated from the event, and she released this statement: “Animal abuse is so connected to domestic abuse – literally in a household, but societally in a more general way, too.”
Clearly, Steinem understood that oppression and violence are widespread and harm animals as well as children. This cat lady was a trailblazing fighter whose work impacted many lives, both human and animal. We are grateful for the life of Gloria Steinem, and sad that she has left this world.
In her memory, we can take to heart this quote Steinem once said, when asked about her legacy: “I’m not giving up my torch, but using it to light the torches of others. Because if we each have a torch, there’s a lot more light.”
