Gloria Steinem: The Warrior, the Dawn, and the Work Left Behind
We lost another warrior this week, and this one was a personal hero of mine. Gloria Steinem died on September 2 at the age of ninety-two, only eight days after Dolly Parton. Apparently the universe has decided to conduct some kind of brutal staff reduction in the Department of Women Who Made It Possible for the Rest of Us, and I plan to write a strongly worded message to management. Dolly and Gloria carried different kinds of swords. Dolly wrapped hers in rhinestones, humor, songs, and a generosity that somehow never required her to give away ownership of herself. Gloria carried a pen, a microphone, and the radical conviction that women describing their own lives could change the world. One reached people through culture and story; the other helped build the language and political structures of a movement. Losing them so close together feels like losing two different expressions of the same force: women insisting that we belong to ourselves. Gloria Steinem was a journalist, activist,...