In my desk drawer, I keep a list of names I’ve been adding to since college. It’s all the women I dream of meeting one day. Sadly, last month I had to cross two names off that list. Not because I was blessed to be in the presence of Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean and Gloria Marie Steinem, but because they’re no longer with us, and the world is dimmer for it.

I’m not going to focus on the incredible programs, legislation, and advocacy Dolly and Gloria worked tirelessly throughout their lives; you can read all about that in the other tributes detailing their lives and accomplishments. Instead, I want to address something that needs to be said in the volatile moment we’re living in: neither woman was a mother.

The Trump administration has made it a priority to promote what they define as the “right kind of woman.” As in: straight, white, married, has kids, and stays at home with them. Because it’s clear the Trump administration and its allies don’t actually want every woman to be a mother, despite their supposed concern over falling birth rates. Just look at a recent proposal Vice President Vance put forward to take money away from programs supporting low-income mothers (many of whom are single moms) to pay stay-at-home mothers who are married.

As someone who was raised to be the Trump administration’s “right” kind of woman, I can’t begin to tell you how stifling it is. You’re constricted to the point where you feel trapped and can’t breathe. They try to erase everything that makes you unique and destroy your spirit. It devalues the contributions of women in our society by saying the only thing you’re good for is birthing and raising babies, no matter whether you want to have children.

So how does all this relate to Dolly and Gloria? In the 1980s, Dolly was diagnosed with endometriosis and had to undergo a partial hysterectomy. This meant that, despite stating that she wanted to have children, she, like countless others with health complications, had limited options. In 2020, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she said:

“I didn’t have children because I believed that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like Imagination Library, because if I hadn’t had the freedom to work, I wouldn’t have done all the things I’ve done.”

Despite all the good she did, the truth is Dolly would not be considered a “good” woman under the traditional gender roles the Trump administration wants to force upon us. All her decades of activism, the millions of dollars she gave to charity and poured into children’s literacy, the ways she showed up for workers as a boss—that is all secondary in their minds to the fact that she didn’t have children and instead leaned into her career.

Gloria, too, rejected traditional ideas of who a woman should be. In 1957, at 22, she had an illegal abortion in London. More than a decade later, after hearing other women share similar experiences, she recognized the importance of community and activism. That’s when she decided to commit to full-time activism. Later in her life, when asked if she had any regrets about not having kids, she said:

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not sure why, except perhaps because when I was growing up, I was looking after my mother who was not well. I’ve noticed that other people who were small people looking after big people don’t want to do it again, even though it’s unrealistic as a measure of having children.”

As a journalist, she brought issues affecting women and girls to the public’s attention and exposed instances of workplace harassment and gender-based violence. She was a founding member of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which still exists today and advocates for more women to run for elected office.

Gloria embodied a lifestyle that went against everything this administration values. Yet her work undeniably helped people of all genders, ages, and races. Work, it should be said, she wouldn’t have been able to do if she hadn’t fought for the life she wanted and against the one ascribed to her.

We know that the most diverse societies are the ones that thrive. When people support policies that benefit women and families, everyone succeeds. These two women show us that you don’t have to be a mother to have a positive impact on the world around you—or to embody stereotypical “maternal” qualities like empathy, compassion, or patience (qualities this administration seems to lack). The Trump administration wants you to think that women who don’t have children have “betrayed” their gender and failed as women. But Dolly and Gloria’s actions show otherwise, and so will their legacies.

Now I’m not a mother, and I don’t know if I ever will be, which is why I’ve always admired these two. Dolly and Gloria taught me to love the parts of me others would want to change and instead be proud of those qualities and truly embrace them. Their legacy shows there’s no one right way to live your life; you don’t have to be a mother to do good as a woman in this world. Women should be able to live the way they want—having children or not, getting married or not—without being attacked by the government for not choosing the “traditional” path. Everyone should have a chance to be a Dolly, or a Gloria, or whoever else they want to be.