Feminist, journalist, and social activist Gloria Steinem died on September 2 at 92. She is survived by countless generations of women who came into their own in part thanks to her leadership and inspiration.

Her wit, wisdom, and, yes, beauty put a new face on the women’s movement in the late 1960s and early 1970’s, and her fame and celebrity redefined what a woman aging in modern America looks like. (At the National Press Club in 1984, she proudly declared, “This is what 50 looks like.” I was there, and I remember thinking she had more to work with than most of us, but I appreciated the sentiment.)

I was at Newsweek, working as a “Girl Friday” in the Atlanta bureau when the magazine put her on the cover in August 1971 with her signature aviator glasses to herald “The New Woman.” A lot of turmoil behind the scenes went into that cover. Newsweek and the other news magazines of the era were late to recognize the ground-shaking power of the women’s movement. To write the cover story, Newsweek’s male editors thought they needed a woman—a noble instinct........

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