SOURCE: Young, Cathy. “Pretty-Power.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4861 (31 May 1996): 11.

In the following review of The Education of a Woman, Young argues that Heilbrun's biased view of her subject compromises the biography as a serious study of Steinem's life and work.

If there is one person whose name has been a symbol of American feminism in the past twenty years, it is Gloria Steinem. As journalist, activist and bestselling writer, Steinem has been a charismatic and controversial figure. Many, from the movement veteran Betty Friedan in the 1970s to dissidents like Christina Hoff Sommers today, have criticized her for promoting a gender-war ideology (though in the 1970s, some radicals also attacked her as too bourgeois). Others, more sympathetic to her politics, have been troubled by her recent plunge into New Age-flavoured pursuits such as inner healing and building self-esteem.

Now comes a lengthy, frankly partisan biography of Steinem whose...