Published Oct 2, 2019

When Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Was Diagnosed With Breast Cancer in the 80s, She Didn’t Have Many Older Survivors to Look Up To — Now She’s The Role Model

Gloria Steinem was 52 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and at the time, there weren't that many older survivors she could look up to.

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Gloria Steinem is 85 years old and still a highly active women’s rights advocate. Hundreds of thousands of American women consider her a role model. She’s stood (and still stands) at the helm of a feminist movement that has spurred advancements in gender equality and civil rights at-large. She’s also a cancer survivor. Steinem was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986, at which time she underwent a surgery called a lumpectomy along with radiation treatment, which fortunately left her cancer-free.

Gloria Steinem has advocated for women’s rights for over half a century (image source: Encyclopedia Britannica).

At the time of her breast cancer diagnosis, Steinem was 52 years old, and as she told NPR’s Terry Gross in an episode of “Fresh Air” just five years later, what made the diagnosis seem so daunting was that there were so few women older than she was that she could look up to.

“There were so few role models,” Steinem said. “When I first heard the diagnosis, I thought, ironically, ‘Oh, so that’s how it’s going to end.'”

Indeed, in the 80s, the breast cancer death rates were about 40 percent higher than they are today. Far fewer women were surviving their breast cancer and living long enough to stand as role models. Women who, like Steinem, were diagnosed in their 50s, couldn’t look to a woman in her 80s and say, ‘she survived her cancer and is living her life.’

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“It [cancer] made me realize that in this culture, women know how to be in the central plateau of life,” Steinem continued, stepping back to consider the prospect of aging in general. “Now I was entering a whole new place. It was like falling off a cliff because I couldn’t see enough people ahead of me.”

It’s been 33 years since Steinem’s breast cancer diagnosis, and in the years since, the advancements in early detection and effective treatment have made it so that thousands of women are now surviving cancer and going on to live their lives — and, ultimately, stand as role models.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (86) and actress Maggie Smith (84) have also survived cancer, are in their 80s, and are still working.

Eighty-six-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for instance, has survived both lung cancer and pancreatic and is still actively serving on the Supreme Court. And actress Dame Maggie Smith, 84, survived breast cancer, too — and just starred in the major “Downton Abbey” feature film.

Gloria Steinem spoke at the Women’s March in 2017 (Image source: Time).

Steinem herself, who is 85 years old and still actively advocating for gender equality and traveling to speak at events (including the Women’s March in 2017), has become one of these role models. Not only do women look up to her today as an example as someone who survived their breast cancer and is now in their 80s — but she is also an example of a woman whose cancer did not define her. Steinem is rarely thought of as a cancer survivor. She’s revered instead for the movement she started and the influential work she’s accomplished.

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