Dolly Parton, Gloria Steinem, and Two Kinds of Feminism

Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem died eight days apart this month, and admittedly, I didn't know much about either of them beyond the headlines — Dolly's rhinestones, "I Will Always Love You," and the free books she mailed to kids for decades; Gloria's aviators, Ms. Magazine, and a life spent advocating for women's rights. So I did a deep dive, and a PBS NewsHour piece on their deaths put it so eloquently it bears repeating: "One shaped and delivered the language of feminism. The other rejected the label but showed how feminism can be done."

Steinem said the word out loud her whole life, founded Ms. Magazine, and told the National Press Club in 2013, "If we each have a torch, there's a lot more light." Dolly never actually said it, and when someone asked her flat out whether she considered herself a feminist, she said, "No, I do not," then mentioned she'd "never met a man whose ass I couldn't kick if he didn't treat me with the right respect" — which honestly tells you everything the label was supposed to mean in the first place.

Steinem called her one anyway, putting Dolly on the cover of Ms. in 1987 and writing, "If feminism means each of us finding your unique power, and helping other women do the same, Dolly Parton certainly has done both," though Dolly never really returned the favor in public (and never needed to).

I think about that now, as someone who's spent years trying to make women's health sound more like a person than a mission statement. The truth is, you don't have to use the word to be doing the work. You just have to actually be doing it.