The Intertwined Legacies of Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton

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This is the daily. Hi, this is Rachel Abrams from the New York Times. Hi, ladies. Thank you for making time to speak with us. I'm sorry for your loss.

Thank you, big one, big, big one. On Thursday morning, hours after the death of the feminist icon Gloria Steinem, we reached out to one of her long-time friends and colleagues. Letty Cotton Pokerban.

“How did you first hear about the news of Gloria's passing?”

Robin called me at 64am, and I was scared to take the call. And then it was Gloria. You know, I thought it might be God's bit. Someone in my family, and then I knew I see what? My family.

She was your family. Yeah, she was. Gloria has been in my life for 55 years. So I met her in 1971 at the founding conference of the National Women's Political Caucus.

And we ended up talking until three in the morning. She was interested in everyone. She thought every woman's life was a novel, a story. She saw women's lives in all the complexity of women's lives. She didn't see us as anyone's thing.

And she knew somewhere in every woman that was the tragedy, comedy, and meaning. Word of Steinem's death came as many Americans. We're still grieving the loss of another iconic woman, Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton passed away. She's such an exceptional singer. Beautiful voice. To me, she was kind of like a guiding light. She's kind of like our matriarch, our country's queen in a sense.

And she just has always been good.

And just embodies good, reflects good back to people. And I think that that's so important. And on paper, the connections between these two women seem faint and superficial. But for my colleague, Times Magazine writer Susan Dominist,

the relationship between their lives and their impact was inescapable. It's Friday, September 4th. Hey, Sue. Hi, Michael.

“I think it's fair to say it's been a tough week and a half.”

I think it's fair to say it's been pretty emotional for a lot of people. Yeah. Well, tell me how you have been thinking about these back to back deaths of these two hugely important women.

Dolly Parton and Laura Stynum. Well, to start, I have to say that the timing of their deaths so close together has really been, I think, something that's made me reflect on the way they were influential, almost as a duo in my life.

And for probably a lot of other women around my age or maybe a little bit older or a little younger. But I came of age in the '70s. And in a way, I almost can't remember a time when I didn't know who Gloria Steinem was.

She represented feminism with a capital F. And she was fighting for a world in which women could fully

express themselves and be their most powerful selves.

But was also advocating for the world to change too. She was fighting for structural change, for political change, for legal change. And in a lot of cases, achieving it.

“Yeah, and that is definitely, I think, the side of feminism”

that we deflect to most often when we think about it. But the other side of feminism is the women who weren't claiming that label of feminism. But we're nonetheless out there in acting and living the promise of what feminism was trying to offer

to women, which is to say financial independence, total control of your life, an unapologetic inhabiting of who it was that you wanted to be and insisting on that kind of woman's right to be strong and to be fearless. And that was Valley Parton.

and even often tried to avoid it. And frankly, I don't think she's necessarily

the first person people think of when they think of feminism.

But the fact of their dying so close to each other has really made me realize that feminism needed both of those representations of what women could do. It needed the person who was the explicit organizer and the rallyer and the articulator

of what these specific values were. But it also needed that person who was just embodying it and embodying it with so much joy and so much power. Well, talks to about the two very different lives and two very different approaches of these women.

And how you yourself experienced them in your own life. And because she died just within the past 24 hours or so, let's start with Gloria Steinem and how she comes into your consciousness. So I've only recently thought a little bit about the fact

that I was born on September 1st, 1970, which was just a few days after one of these big inflection points in the feminist movement.

Now, September is powerful, July is now.

When there was this huge women strike and 50,000 women marched on Fifth Avenue and closed it down, the main demand of course is equal, equal rights, equal rights to have a job to have respect and not be viewed as a piece of meat. And I grew up with the rise of feminism,

which is to say the omnipresence of Gloria Steinem. I would not have admitted my own inequality, even though I had been reduced to apartments by landlords who would not rent to women. Because she was everywhere.

I no longer accept society's judgment that my group is second class. And she was somebody who I remember kind of in the background of my entire experience of growing up in the 70s. It's a kid in a household with tons of magazines lying around.

And what exactly was she saying?

“And in particular, what was she saying about feminism and women?”

So she really entered feminism through journalism. Her big first breakout piece of journalism was famously she went undercover as a playboy bunny. And revealed that this job that people from the outside thought was maybe kind of glamorous and fun was actually

grueling. It was humiliating. The women there were exposed to all kinds of harassment. They were required to take these invasive gynecological exams. They were underpaid.

They worked long hours. And it was a piece of stunt journalism in a way. And it got her a lot of attention. But she didn't really become active as a feminist per se until the late 60s when she was reporting

on a group of women who were openly discussing their abortions. And she ended up writing a piece for New York Magazine about the women's liberation movement.

“From there, I think, public speaking invitations”

sort of slowing in. And all of this ultimately leads to her co-founding

what became Ms. Magazine, which was an incredible manifesto

for women of the time. And was immediately a huge hit. It started because there were just a great many women writers and editors who didn't feel that they were working on magazines that they read.

And that they had the opportunity to really be honest about their own experiences in a magazine. It was the first magazine run entirely by women. And unlike other women's magazines, it was leaning into controversial subjects.

How to get equal pay, legally speaking, or externally how to take the license away from the television station that's discriminating against women, how to start a child care center, how to get into medical school. It's very strong on how to articles with the simple assumption

that this is possible. And we get--

“It also, I think, really encouraged other women's magazines”

ultimately to cover those topics, too. So it was a juggernaut that changed the face of pop cultural media consumption for women. Eventually, of course, though, she leaps from journalism into this much more formal advocacy

and organizing and in the politics. Very quickly. Yeah, I mean, obviously she was really an important messenger through the media, but she was also an organizer. We are the women that our parents warned us about.

We have got here a revolution. She was fighting for the ERA. And here not only for the equal rights amendment, but in the names of all the women in this country who was struggling with two jobs when men have won.

She was helping to found the National Women's Political Caucus. She was very active in union organizing. I think any human system of exploitation will change.

And she was basically someone who stood for equality

in the workplace. Women's control of their reproductive rights. And to all kinds of double standards and a real shift in what home life ideally would look like. Well, as Steinem and those around her

are coming at this question of women's equality and liberation from all these different angles, what were you and those around you making of the message?

“If I'm really honest, I think in some ways,”

it was an uncomfortable time for many people, maybe even including a little suburban kid. I think feminism in general, the feminism I associated with Steinem, had this image that was a little bit harsh, maybe the songs.

Even if you just think about the anthems, it was like, I am woman hear me roar. It was a read the Franklin God bless her, demanding respect. Or it was later, like I will survive. Well, these things are really important.

But we're a little bit maybe intimidating for a kid. And I kind of associated feminism, maybe because of more conservative messages that were also being filtered through. I associated it with why that mom around the corner, you know, walked out on her family, or I associated it

with why my favorite summer camp counselor made fun of me for reading 17 magazine because it was all about how to look cute for boys or how to sew things from leftover dish rags. They just thought it was a silliest thing in the world.

And for me, basically, your counselor would have said,

“Sue, that is not feminist enough, you should be ashamed yourself.”

Yeah, I'm pretty much did. It's just that I was growing up one way and the world was quickly changing. And I think a lot of people were grappling with that. Well, how does your view of this all?

And of course, Steinem changed over time. Certainly with time, I came to have a huge appreciation for the work that she did and the possibilities that she made available for women like me. My first job in the workforce was in 1992.

I was working at glamour magazine. And that magazine at the time was aggressively covering reproductive rights and women's health and sexual harassment. None of that would have been possible

without the success of Ms. magazine.

And I had a female bosses boss there with Whitney, a woman who had tremendous authority. I mean, I remember women running down the hallway applying lipstick if they got called to her office. That was a kind of command that she had.

And it left a huge impression on me.

“And again, I think those kinds of responsibilities”

and jobs are something that the feminist movement, which Gloria Steinem was hugely influential in leading, made possible. And just a few years later, I would end up working at New York Magazine, where Gloria Steinem got her start.

And I had the tremendous opportunity to interview her for an oral history. And not only did I thank her, but it's the only time in my life. I've ever asked anybody I've interviewed for a signature.

And she actually inscribed for my then four-month-old niece, a copy of Free to Be You In Me, which was a tremendous feminist anthem book that we all loved at the time. And her inscription to my niece, Red,

to Emily, who will continue the revolution for all of us, exclamation point. So my gratitude for Gloria Steinem, I would say, was kind of a ongoing process. That took a little bit of time for me to mature

and really embrace. But when I think about the real lightning bolt, feminist moment that I had, it was actually in 1980, and the person at the center of it was not Gloria Steinem. It was Dolly Parton.

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- So Sue, tell us about this moment,

“which you mentioned just before the break,”

of feminist discovery for you, that involves dolly pardon. - It's 1980, and I'm 10 years old. My sister is 11 years old. Somebody drops us up at the movie theater,

and we sat down to watch the movie, nine to five, which started dolly pardon, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. We laughed for two straight hours. It might be one of my happiest memories

with my sister, even. - And we absolutely fell in love with dolly pardon. (upbeat music) ♪ Looking at you by one ♪ - I think it's possible that we had a vague idea

of who she was, but we were New York kids. We didn't listen to country music.

So it was our first real encounter with her,

and she was this absolutely beautiful, beaming, uncomplaining, action-oriented woman who wouldn't take anything, and we were just riveted.

“- Do you remember any of the scenes that stuck with you?”

- Yeah, actually, you know, dolly pardon. She's a secretary who's been harassed by her boss. Normally, I'm serious, don't you understand? I am crazy about you. You're all I ever think about.

- Mr. Hart, I've told you before I'm a married woman. - And I'm a married man, that's what makes it so perfect. - But I also remember being struck by the injustices which is his kind of pathetic objectification of her and his pathetic protestations of being in love.

- Just what exactly are you driving at? - It was very simple. You come over to my house tonight, and I'll just forget the whole thing. - You are disgusting.

- Is that a no? - Those kind of, you know, classic sexual harassment moments that so many women continue frankly to be subject to and turned out to be something that, you know, was part of the work lives of so many of my friends

and me, and actually, you know, the movie has these crazy fantasy sequences that now seem completely cuckoo pants. - Morning. - Hold it, just hold it right there. - Something wrong?

- No, no, nothing's wrong. I just wanna check your body.

Turn around for a second. (sighs)

- Oh, you got a nice ass friend, but you know you ought to get your pants cut a little tighter.

“You need to bring them up just a little in the crotch.”

I mean, you got a nice package, you might as well show it off. - She's a secretary who's been harassed by her boss and she kind of turns the tables on him and objectifies him and comments on his body and has him twirl around for her.

And it's a very funny scene. She's very charming in it, and it just made us laugh and laugh. But at the time, it was just seeing these really smart, funny, chic women who are not taking it anymore. - You don't really find something on him,

maybe we could trade off. Blackmail, all that sounds good. What could we get on him? A sex scandal. Take a picture of him and bed with a prostitute.

- Oh, who'd care? - Yeah, heart would just buy up the copies and send him out as Christmas cards. - And there is no tenant of feminism in the workplace that they don't touch on in that movie.

It's equal pay, it's child care. It's the right to work free of sexual harassment. It's the right to be expected to get promotions and not have to bring somebody coffee and to be rewarded for the work that you've done

and not see a man get credit for it. It's very explicit, I mean, I now know that it was actually based on an actual feminist organizing group for clerical workers called nine to five. And it had a real mission to it.

But it was cloaked in this joyful comedic masterpiece of its time that was extremely well done and turned out to be an enormous hit. And when you think back to watching nine to five, what do you think it was in particular

about a person that gripped you? - Well, I think feminism in generally was unfairly portrayed as sort of door, and even though Gloria Steinem, of course, herself was quite conventionally beautiful,

there was still this stereotype of like the angry feminist. And Dellie Parton in this movie was angry. She was mad as hell, but she was also kind of delightful and charming and had a lightness and even a sparkliness to her.

And obviously was hyper feminine. And so that juxtaposition of her values with a look and an aura and a sort of southern charm

there was just something very enticing

about all of those things wrapped up in this tiny blonde package. - It's striking to me that you called this a kind of like lightning bolt feminist moment for yourself, because it sparked by a woman

who, as you said, at the beginning of our conversation, doesn't call herself a feminist. - You know, I think yes, that's true. And I think that that was part of the power of the movie, not just for me as a dumb 10 year old,

but for so many women who, you know, if you asked them, do you believe in equality? They would say yes I do. And if you asked them, do you believe in fairness?

“Do you believe you should get credit for your work?”

They would all say yes, but for complicated cultural reasons,

felt alienated from the capital F feminist, capital M movement, or from the women's liberation movement. And kind of for some other reasons that even I is a little kid felt sort of threatened by it, you know. And so the movie was able to bring into the fold

a lot of people who just wanted to see women get treated the way they deserved to be treated. And of course, that's all that feminism ever wanted. But there was something just really enveloping about the message that everybody could get behind in that movie.

- Did you think of this performance and of the movie itself as feminist at the time? - I don't know if I would have even stopped to reflect on that, but it certainly aligned with, you know, what I knew to be feminist ideals.

As for Dali herself, I think it really was only

with time that I understood the feminist person behind that feminist role, you know. - What do you mean? - Well, she did record songs that were ahead of their time and speaking about things, for example,

like on-wed pregnancy and a song called "Down From Dover" that many radio stations refused to play.

“♪ I know this dress and wearin' doesn't hide the secret life ♪”

♪ Try and see me ♪ - And, you know, she would go on, for example, to start something called "Dali Wood." - There are places that hold a special meaning in your life. - Which was a really bold move for a woman

to take that kind of ownership of her brand and name something after herself like that. You know, we know that women are perceived as less likable than men are when they ask for raises, right? Like, women aren't supposed to be patting themselves

on the back or drawing attention to themselves and they're glory. Of course, she was doing that to bring business and job opportunities to the community in which she was raised. That was the motivation.

It wasn't about self-glourification, but I think it was a modeling of power that is very, very rare in female business history and she was a tremendous business woman who really kept control and fought for control

of her own creative output in a way that no doubt paved the way for people like Taylor Swift to, you know, have inspired so many young women with her fierceness and the way that she conducts herself as a business woman.

- So what you came to understand is that the woman who played that character in '95, battling a showvinist boss and a toxic male culture was a woman who, through song and through her business, modeled what a woman could be in practice

and what that could be was a bona fide business mogul. - Yes, think about it in many ways. She was executing the vision of what feminists wanted women to be able to do. - And on behalf of myself and the internal revenue service,

I'd like to thank Whitney for making my song as an enormous hit. - She had control over her finances and over her business.

“You know, I looked like a woman that I think like a man”

and in this world of business, that has helped me a lot because by the time they think that I don't know what's going on, I didn't got the money and gone. - She dressed the way she wanted to dress. - I love being flashy, I love kind of showing the parts of me

that have become famous for. And I try to do it in as good a taste as I can. - She wasn't gonna let anybody tell her what she had to look like and, you know, even the fact that she was child free and was not being questioned as being less than a woman,

that too was something that Gloria Steinem wanted for women that they could make that choice and not be judged for it. All of these things made her somebody who was living in the feminist ideals in practice. - Well, that makes me wonder.

What if anything did Gloria Steinem have to say about Dolly Parton or I guess the other way around? Did they see themselves as peers and in the fight together? - You know, that's a great question.

in interviews leading up to nine to five

to say that this was absolutely not a movie about structural sexism or workplace injustice. This was not a feminist movie. It was just a funny movie about this one guy and his three wacky secretaries.

And I think what was happening there, you know, you could look at it cynically and say, oh, this is a woman who was terrified of losing her audience in the south.

“But I think that you have to interpret this decision”

through the lens of who we know her to be, which was this unbelievable philanthropist and visionary and champion of literacy.

And she was by then a very unifying figure,

which, you know, just look at how the country has come together to grieve her loss, just as we have Gloria Steinem's loss. But I think she recognized that there were other people who could claim the mantle of feminism and do that work but that only Dolly Parton could champion women's rights

and their right to be equals in every way without labeling herself and that she could rally people around the cause and be more effective in it if she didn't take on any kind of label.

- Did Gloria Steinem ever say anything about that? What did she think about that subtler approach? - Well, in 1987, Ms. Magazine includes Dolly Parton as one of its women of the year and no one other than Gloria Steinem herself actually writes

this tribute to Dolly Parton. And you have to remember, back in 1987, Dolly Parton was, you know, in some circles as much a punchline as she was an icon and here's Gloria Steinem recognizing the work

that she undoubtedly did do for the cause whether she would own it in that language, a feminism or not.

“- Well, what does Steinem write in this tribute to Parton?”

- She starts like this. People who haven't listened to Dolly Parton or feminism may be surprised to learn that they go together. And she goes on to say that if you don't understand that,

you're missing something, here's what she says.

If feminism means each of us finding our unique power and helping other women do the same, Dolly Parton certainly has done both. - So Steinem is saying quite formally that, yes, Dolly Parton may reject the label feminist

and you might not think of her as a feminist, but I am here to say as the embodiment of feminism as its painter and saint that she is a feminist figure and she's done the work and she's walked the walk. - Yeah, but she has that power.

“That's the word that I think really sticks out for me.”

- This episode is about the way you've experienced these two women, but the way I've experienced there, death is that I don't think anyone could have ever imagined that they would both die so close to each other and I don't think any of us really understood

that either was even close to death. - You know, it's funny because when I did interview Gloria Steinem, she actually spoke a little bit about what she imagined for the end of her life. Here's what she said.

In my old age, really old age, since I'm going to live past a hundred, I hope, I would love to have a diner, a little diner with blueging and curtains by the side of the road because diners are the most democratic places.

And she goes on to talk about how everybody goes to diners, truck drivers, people from the neighborhood, they're cheerful, they're cozy, she says, they're truly populist places. And when I think about that, diner,

I can just imagine who's playing on the jute box. It's Bali. - We'll see you. Thank you so much, we appreciate it. - It's really been my pleasure.

Thank you for having me. (upbeat music) You can hear and read more from reporters like Sue Dominoz in the New York Times app. If you don't already have the app,

you can get access to everything on it. Free for one month by downloading the app right now.

Here's what else you need to know today.

“In his latest circumvention of norms and rules,”

President Trump is breaking ground on his controversial 250 foot tall arch in downtown Washington, D.C. Before a federal panel has approved the project. On Thursday, the administration said that construction work

would begin on the arch over the next two weeks.

The project has provoked opposition from preservationists and local residents because it would disrupt

“the views of multiple historical sites around the capital,”

including Arlington National Cemetery. And in the closely watched trial of Lindsey Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children,

a single holdout appears to be preventing the jury

from reaching a unanimous verdict. On Thursday, a lawyer for Clancy sought to have the holdout removed from the jury, arguing that the jury was not listening to the law.

“A request that the judge in the case has so far”

refused. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tair, Diana Win, Lindsey Garrison, Eric Crupkey, Carlos Prieto, and Anna Foley. It was edited by N.J. Davis-Lim,

Devon Taylor and Lisa Channel. It was fact checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado, contains music by Dan Powell, Marion Lazono, and Chelsea Daniel, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Wonderland.

That's it for today. I'm Michael Barrel. See you on Sunday. I'm Gilbert Cruz. This week on the Book Review podcast,

how do you feel about ghosts? I love it. Fall book season is here and we are going to talk about a bunch of books that we are excited for. As soon as I read the description of this,

I was like, oh, I'm so in and I don't really read more. I'm interested in this. Get me the second book. Listen to the Book Review wherever you get your podcasts. Highly recommended.