The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. In addition to her fiction writing, Gale was an active supporter of the La Follettes (both Robert M. La Follettes, and Philip La Follette) and progressive causes. She was an active member of the National Women's Party, and she lobbied extensively for the 1921 Wisconsin Equal Rights Law. In the same year, she attended the founding meeting (in New York) of the Lucy Stone League and became a member of its Executive Committee. Her activism on behalf of women was her way to help solve "a problem she returned to repeatedly in her novels: women's frustration at their lack of opportunities."