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I am not the kind of person who does well meeting celebrities. Generally, I don’t recognize them. Alternatively, I embarrass myself. But there is one encounter that I remember as nothing but glorious: meeting Gloria Steinem. It was back in 2015, when she was touring her book My Life on the Road, and I remember, after seeing her speak and buying a copy, the experience of taking a picture with her with some of my friends.

What surprised me—delighted me, in fact—is that this ended up not only being not bad but actually veering toward good. I remember distinctly the way her body language seemed to convey what no words could: I know you’re getting a kick out of this, her smizing eyes showed, but just so you know, I get a kick out of you too. It was a rare reciprocal relationship in an interaction otherwise distorted by fame—we loved her because she was Gloria Steinem, and she loved us because we were bright-eyed young women. Our smiles reflect the possibility of the time before Donald Trump beat two women to take and retake the presidency; her great and successful life’s work had been to make our lives less encumbered. In that moment, our eagerness must have seemed like her reward.

The book I bought that day is dedicated to the doctor who helped Steinem get an abortion back in 1957, a decade before the practice was legal in the U.K., where it was performed. Steinem was on her way to India, and her doctor, she writes, made her promise two things: that she would keep his identity secret and that she would do what she wanted with her life. “I’ve done the best I could with my life,” she writes. “This book is for you.”

A few years later, I found myself completely engulfed in researching the fight for abortion rights in the United States—it was........

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