When people wanted to dismiss Gloria Steinem, they spoke about how she looked. Talking about the pioneering activist and journalist who turned feminism into a major civil rights movement, it might seem reductive to focus on her glasses.
But after Steinem – whose death at 92 was announced on Thursday – wore them on the cover of Newsweek in 1971 next to the cover-line The New Woman, the lightly tinted aviators – often worn over her hair – became an accidental form of self-branding that made her instantly recognisable. They were as indelibly linked to her legacy as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s jabots or even Anna Wintour’s sunglasses. They also became one of her greatest weapons.
