Steinem helps launch the first national program encouraging employers and parents to expose girls to workplace opportunities.
In 1993, Gloria Steinem, working through the Ms. Foundation for Women, helped formally establish "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" as a national program. The initiative invited parents and employers across the United States to bring young girls into workplaces for a day, exposing them to career paths and professional environments often previously modeled primarily for boys.
The program grew out of research showing that adolescent girls often experienced a marked drop in self-esteem and career ambition during their early teenage years. By creating structured, positive exposure to professional women's work lives, the program aimed to counteract those patterns and broaden girls' sense of possibility.
As the first program of its kind operating at a national scale, "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" quickly became one of the most widely observed annual awareness events in American schools and workplaces, eventually expanding in 2003 to become "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day," reflecting growing recognition of gender-inclusive mentorship.
Steinem's role in co-founding this initiative reflected her long-standing strategic focus on building lasting institutions—like Ms. magazine and the Ms. Foundation—that could carry feminist goals into mainstream American culture and daily practice, well beyond protest and rhetoric alone.