For feminists, the deaths of Parton and Steinem days apart deliver a double dose of grief

One shaped and delivered the language of feminism. The other rejected the label but showed how feminism can be done: with a microphone dusted in rhinestones, and without apology. Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton embodied two towering versions of the same idea: that women should know themselves well enough to make their own choices about matters intimate and societal.

Their deaths eight days apart sent a double dose of grief around the world and across generations as many women (and some men!) asked who would take their places at the forefront of women’s rights. Steinem, overtly political, went undercover as a Playboy bunny to deliver an exposé, founded Ms. Magazine and spent the rest of her life urging women to support each other.

Parton, on the other hand, defined herself as a larger-than-life daughter of the American South who told stories with music and included everybody — but refused to play politics or call herself a feminist. Gloria taught us to speak up,” wrote DeMond B Nason, a New York City singer. “Both reminded us that a woman could walk into a world that told her who she was supposed to be — and simply decide to become something else.” Animated by the same idea, even if they didn’t call it the same thing Parton didn’t say so, but Steinem insisted more than three decades ago that the pair fit together under the same feminist flag.

“If feminism means each of us finding your unique power, and helping other women do the same, Dolly Parton certainly has done both,” Steinem wrote in 1987, when Ms. Magazine named the singer one of its “Women of the Year.” Many shared the sense that Steinem and Parton belonged together. “Both believed in women: in our ability to decide who we are, make our own choices, take care of one another and shape the world around us,” wrote Swati Narayan in a column for American Kahani, an online news outlet for Indian and South Asian Americans.

Magazine re-ran Steinem’s essay with an editor’s note: “Steinem celebrated Parton not only as a gifted songwriter and magnetic performer, but as a shrewd businessperson who transformed femininity into a source of humor and power — and used her success to lift up working women, poor communities and the mountain people of her native Tennessee.” The embrace wasn’t mutual, at least not publicly.