She is the superfeminist who famously said, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." So when Gloria Steinem decided to get married for the first time—at age 66—it was the shock heard ‘round the world.

And few were more surprised than the bride herself.

Not that there was anything conventional about the September 3, 2000 ceremony, a sunrise service conducted by a spiritual member of the Cherokee Nation in Stilwell, Oklahoma. Steinem wore jeans, a t-shirt and sandals; her bridegroom, 61-year-old South African businessman and activist David Bale, wore black jeans and a black shirt. The words "husband" and "wife" were replaced with "partners," and of course there was no vow to "obey." The couple exchanged beaded rings plucked from the sale basket at an Indian craft shop, though they have worn no rings since. And, needless to say, she did not change her name to "Mrs. Bale."

Steinem had met Bale, twice-divorced and the father of actor Christian Bale, at a Voters for Choice benefit in October 1999. "We realized at the end of August 2000 that we'd spent every minute together for an entire month and were happy about it," says Steinem. "We were both very surprised when we decided to get married--it was never something either of us thought we'd do."

But then Gloria Steinem has never been predictable. Probably the world's most famous feminist—and equally well-known for her glamour and her relationships with men—she's devoted her life to breaking free from all that is stereotypical and stifling.

Steinem's zeal for new ways of thinking might be traced back to a childhood that was far from the Norman Rockwell mold. She was born in Toledo, Ohio on March 25, 1934, she was the second of Ruth and Leo Steinem's two daughters (her sister, Susanne, 9 years older, had expressly requested a little sister and named her Gloria after one of her dolls). The college-educated Ruth had a brief career as a journalist, but struggled with mental illness for most of her life; Leo was a warmhearted, larger-than-life antiques dealer who routinely took his family on the road, pulling Gloria out of school for months at a time (she didn't complete a full year of school until 6th grade).

Her parents divorced in 1945. By then, Susanne was away at college and 10-year old Gloria was left alone to care for her emotionally unstable mother in poverty and squalid conditions. Among her many bleak memories of that time: waking up one night with a bloody rat bite rat bite (somehow her mother pulled herself together and got her to the hospital); serving meals in bed to her incapacitated mother, who was hearing phantom voices; and being so ashamed of her home life that she never invited a friend to her house, despite her profound loneliness.

Looking back, Steinem feels that the parent-child role reversal was not entirely a bad thing. "It made me grow up too soon, but it taught me that I could survive, which is very valuable," she reflects. She's also developed tremendous compassion for her mother's suffering. "I feel sadder for her lost years and talents than I do for anything I experienced."

With the help of a scholarship, Steinem made it to Smith College, where she majored in government (and, unlike her fellow students, she marveled at the quality and abundance of the dining-hall food.) She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1956 and became engaged to a dashing Air National Guard pilot. But she broke it off, already knowing deep down that being a wife and mother was not for her, mainly because she felt life for a married woman seemed so limited.

Fleeing to India on a fellowship, Steinem traveled to primitive villages to help the poor, and became involved with followers of Mahatma Gandhi. She credits this experience with teaching her the nuts and bolts of group organizing and the importance of speaking directly to the people you want to affect, rather than being a distant leader; it's why she has always traveled so much. "Nothing can replace the all-five-senses experience of being in a room together and learning what each person means," she says.

In 1958 she landed in New York and began working as a freelance journalist. One of her most notable articles was in 1962 for Esquire on the then-groundbreaking contraceptive pill , and one the following year for Show magazine on her "undercover" job as a Playboy Bunny, which revealed the demeaning nature of the work. (Her experience inspired the 1985 TV movie A Bunny's Tale , starring Kirstie Alley.)

"Being a Playboy Bunny was rather like being hung on a meat hook," she recalls. "The male customers and employees were fully clothed, while the Bunnies were barely clothed at all. Thus the men felt free to comment on the women's bodies, while both gender and employee roles kept the Bunnies from commenting back. We were poorly paid and subject to being fired on a moment's notice, for appearance flaws or anything else. The work was hard, with heavy trays and nine-hour shifts, all made more difficult by having to wear three-inch heels and costumes so tight they broke if you sneezed. The customers and male managers were seen as individuals, but the Bunnies were exchangeable moving parts of a machine."

By 1968 at age 34, Steinem became a co-founder of New York magazine, for which she wrote a regular column called "The City Politic." But her true awakening took place in 1969, when she attended a feminist speakout on a secret issue. "I heard women telling the truth about what had happened to them when they went out to find an illegal abortion," Steinem remembers. "It was the first time in my life I had ever heard women talking seriously—and testifying publicly— about an experience that was solely female. It made me question why it was illegal and dangerous to have an abortion when one out of three or four women needed an abortion at sometime in her life, even then. Since I, too, had had an abortion in my 20s (in England in 1957) and told no one, it also made me question why I had been made to feel I could not or should not be honest. For me it was the beginning of questioning everything."

From then on, Steinem became a major advocate for women's liberation and reproductive freedom, traveling to remote areas of the country to get the message out. Articulate, amusing and accessible, she soon became the most visible feminist in the nation. But to some earlier feminists--who called her subversive and media-hungry--she was perceived as a threat. Sporting mini skirts, long hair and her trademark aviator glasses ("I sat on those sometime in the 70s and I miss them," she says.), she was seen by others as too pretty and glamorous to be legit. It was a presumption she still finds vexing.

"I was not considered so great-looking before feminism as after, which I think is a comment on some people's expectation level," she says. "They assumed that if you could get a man, you wouldn't bother to be concerned about equal pay."

Of course, Steinem could--and did-- "get" men. Her highly-publicized relationships (several of which resulted in marriage proposals that she declined) included ones with film director Mike Nichols and real-estate magnate Mort Zuckerman. She remains friends with most of her former flames to this day.

In 1972, Steinem co-founded the revolutionary Ms. —the first national magazine to be produced and controlled entirely by women. She remains a consulting editor and writes a column for every issue. "It is the hardest thing I've ever done, the cause of the most lost sleep and income," she says. "Yet I'm very proud of Ms. , especially as I learn what it means in women's lives."

Somehow she has also authored several bestselling books--including Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983) and Moving Beyond Words (1994). And she's been a co-founder or leader of numerous organizations, including The Women's Action Alliance, National Women's Political Caucus, The Ms. Foundation for Women and Voters for Choice.

Steinem's achievement list is a long one, but then, she's been at it a long time. Turning 68 this month, she is aging gracefully, if not quietly —she confesses to indulging her childhood enthusiasm for tap-dancing when no one's around. Getting older, she says, is comparable to the unique period of freedom young girls experience--before sexuality, childbearing and careers come into play--and she has no desire to turn back the clock.

She survived a 1986 bout with breast cancer and is now a vegetarian and yoga devotee. Asked whether she would consider getting a face lift, her first response is to wonder if anyone would ask Ralph Nader the same thing.Then she explains that she's not opposed to plastic surgery, she just wishes youth wasn't valued over age, especially for women. "For myself, I haven't chosen a face lift because I don't want to end up looking like someone else--as I see so many women doing."

Her life with Bale is busy and bicoastal; they have homes in New York in California, and she still travels 3 to 4 times a month for speaking engagements. Her latest work-in-progress, in fact, is a chronicle of her peripatetic existence, a book tentatively titled Road to the Heart: America as if Everyone Mattered . "Ironically, I'm on the road so much that it's been hard to find time to write it!" she says.

As for women's rights, Steinem concedes that society has come a long way, but there are still enough challenges to keep her active. She flinches at the suggestion that feminism is an outdated concept, calling that "a myth of the sound-bite, novelty-driven media." To her, the movement's merely morphed.

"These days, roughly 70-80% of Americans support the notion of equality and many of the obstacles once facing women no longer exist," she states. "Certainly, we have overcome a lot of hurdles--one of the biggest is that people for the most part now understand that women's position is not immutable; it's not biologically fixed, or fixed by God or Freud," she says. "But while we've changed consciousness, we've barely begun to change structure. For example, we've moved toward equal pay, but we still don't have it; we have some examples of equal access to top positions, but they're still rare; we know that women can do what men do, but not that men can do what women do. Most children are still raised by women, not equally nurtured by men. And precisely because so many people now support equality and reproductive freedom, the secular and religious right wing has become much better-organized in opposition."

What that all means is: Steinem has not lost an ounce of her fighting spirit, nor does she have any plans to retire."We've made a good beginning, but it's only a beginning," she says. "We haven't even begun to imagine what could be."