Iconic Feminist

Gloria Steinem spent her life working for equal rights for women and other underprivileged groups. She was a real fighter, using words. 

"Too often we think the tree grows from the top, from Congress. Trees grow from the bottom," she said, adding that what mattered most was the work being done by everyday people and communities.

Her chart is a very martial one. She has Sun conjunct Mars in Aries in the 5th house. Both Sun and Mars are strong in Aries. With Scorpio rise, Mars is her chart ruler. Her Sun is conjunct Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and she was wise. 

I have written before how Neptune in the 10th house is often present in charts of glamorous women. Gloria, with Neptune in Virgo in the 10th, was the glamorous feminist, and her looks meant men could no longer be so dismissive in their critiques of feminism.

While she experienced the same sexism as others did, Clay Felker, the founder of New York magazine, (a Libra with Moon in Aries and Saturn on Gloria's ascendant) gave Gloria her first serious assignment and funded the first issue of Ms. magazine. 

With Saturn in Aquarius in the 4th, she had an itinerant salesman for a father, and a mentally ill mother who she cared for after her father left the family when she was 10. She did not blame her parents, even though she did not have formal schooling until she was in sixth grade. An autodidact, she made up for it by reading voraciously, and went on to graduate from Smith College magna cum laude. 

Her chart shows the Moon in Leo in the 9th house of higher education and travel, along with Pluto in Cancer. She spent several years in India learning about Gandhi's peace movement by walking with his followers. The 9th house also rules publishing and she was a cofounder of New York Magazine and a founder of Ms. Magazine.

Leo on the Midheaven helped make her a star. They are the natural born leaders of the zodiac.

Her Venus in Aquarius on the nadir, conjunct Saturn, possibly reflects the insecurity she felt at times. But that same Venus was in a perfect trine to Jupiter in Libra and over the course of her life she dated many glamorous intellectual men. 

With Venus in Aquarius, sextile Uranus in Aries, she was ahead of her time.