152 Quotes & Sayings By Gloria Steinem

No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin–because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life. Gloria Steinem

In the 1970s, while researching in the Library of Congress, I found an obscure history of religious architecture that assumed a fact as if it were common knowledge: the traditional design of most patriarchal buildings of worship imitates the female body. Thus, there is an outer and inner entrance, labia majora and labia minora; a central vaginal aisle toward the altar; two curved ovarian structures on either side; and then in the sacred center, the altar or womb, where the miracle takes place - where males gives birth. Though this comparison was new to to me, it struck home like a rock down a well. Of course, I thought. The central ceremony of patriarchal religions is one in which men take over the yoni-power of creation by giving birth symbolically. No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin - because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life. No wonder the male priesthood tries to keep women away from the altar, just as women are kept away from control of our own powers of reproduction. Symbolic or real, it's all devoted to controlling the power that resides in the female body. . Gloria Steinem

Thinking about our schooling in different decades and parts of the country, all three of us in that kitchen discover that we were taught more about ancient Greece and Rome than about the history of the land we live on. We learned about the pyramid builders of Egypt but not the pyramid builders of the Mississippi River. Gloria Steinem

Without leaps of the imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning Gloria Steinem

I didn’t hear words that were accurate, much less prideful. For example, I never once heard the word clitoris. It would be years before I learned that females possessed the only organ in the human body with no function than to feel pleasure. (If such an organ were unique to the male body, can you imagine how much we would hear about it–and what it would be used to justify?) Gloria Steinem

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.) . Gloria Steinem

At first, feminists were assumed to be only discontented suburban housewives; then a small bunch of women's "libbers", bra burners, and radicals; then women on welfare; then briefcase carrying imitations of male executives; then unfulfilled women who forgot to have children; then women voters..that really could decide elections. That last was too dangerous, so suddenly we were told we were in a "postfeminist" age.. Gloria Steinem

The art of life is not controlling what happens to us, but using what happens to us Gloria Steinem

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. Gloria Steinem

As Robin Morgan wrote so wisely, "Hate generalizes, love specifies". Thats what makes going on the road so important. It definitely specifies. Gloria Steinem

A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual. Gloria Steinem

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be "unfeminine" so we suppress it -until it overflows. I could see that not speaking up made my mother feel worse. This was my first hint of the truism that depression is anger turned inward; thus women are twice as likely to be depressed. My mother paid a high price for caring so much, yet being able to do so little about it. In this way, she led me toward am activist place where she herself could never go. . Gloria Steinem

But why didn't you leave? Why didn't you take my sister and go to New York?" she would say it didn't matter, that she was lucky to have my sister and me. If I pressed hard enough, she would add, "If I'd left, you never would have been born." I never had the courage to say: But you would have been born instead. Gloria Steinem

Women of all groups were measurably more likely than their male counterparts to vote for equality, health, and education, and against violence as a way of solving conflict. It wasn't about biology, but experience. Gloria Steinem

Feminism...is not 'women as victims' but women refusing to be victims. Gloria Steinem

There are really not many jobs that actually acquire a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. Gloria Steinem

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. Gloria Steinem

When people ask me why I still have hope and energy after all these years, I always say: Because I travel. Gloria Steinem

Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't. Gloria Steinem

My father did not have to trade dying alone for the joys of the road. My mother did not have to give up a journey of her own to have a home. Neither do I. Neither do you. Gloria Steinem

As feminism has changed academia by enlarging what is taught, academia has sometimes changed feminism. Gloria Steinem

Mrs. Greene made me understand the parallels between race and caste--- and how women's bodies were used to perpetuate both. Different prisons. Same key. Gloria Steinem

The idea that women are 'our own worst enemies' forces us to admit that we don't have the power to be, even if we wanted too. Gloria Steinem

Everyone has a home but me. Gloria Steinem

One of the saddest things I hear as I travel is "I don't know enough to be a feminist." Or even "I'm not smart enough to be a feminist." It breaks my heart. Gloria Steinem

I was angry because young men in politics were treated like rising stars and young women were treated like - well - young women. {...}I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body, and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one. Gloria Steinem

An older man who seems to be the leader of the Jesus Tshirt group says that the Bible forbids abortion in its commandment “Thou shall not kill.” But being in the Bible Belt, people really know their Bible, and an older woman cites Exodus 21:22—23, a passage that says a man who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry must pay a fine but is not charged with murder, not unless the woman herself dies. Thus the Bible is making clear, that a dependent life is not the same as an independent life. Gloria Steinem

Father Egan continues to write about everything from the injustice of current wars to the past and future of Catholic mysticism. In the Catholic Reporter, he publishes an article titled "Celibacy, a Vague Old Cross on Priestly Backs", and explains that it started "only in 1139 when the church no longer wanted to be financially responsible for the children of priests. Gloria Steinem

Women are always better liked if we sacrifice ourselves for something bigger - and something bigger always means including men, even though something bigger for men doesn't usually mean including women. Gloria Steinem

In the same way that individual women are often underestimated, a movement of women is also understimated, but the truth is that, if people realize someone is willing to talk about these deep and daily concerns, they show up. Gloria Steinem

Inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. Gloria Steinem

I also noticed that humor was even more of a survival tactic here than in most women's groups. As one asked: What did Columbus call primitive? Answer: Equal women. Gloria Steinem

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be "unfeminine", so we suppress it-until it overflows. Gloria Steinem

It's time to leave. There is so much out there to do and say and listen to. I can go on the road, because I can come home. I come home, because I am free to leave. Gloria Steinem

Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts. As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself. Gloria Steinem

You should write about take no-shit women like me. Girls need to know they can break the rules" p.79 Gloria Steinem

Sometimes I think the only real division into two is between people who divide everything into two and those who don't. Gloria Steinem

Long before all these divisions were opened between home and the road, betweens a woman's place and a man's world, humans followed the crops, the seasons, traveling with their families, our companions, animals, our tents. We built campfires and moved from place to place. This way of traveling is still in our cellular memory. Living things have evolved as travelers, Even migrating birds know that nature doesn't demand a choice between nesting and flight. . Gloria Steinem

Before she leaves, my new friend tells me to look out of the big picture window at the parking lot." See that purple Harley out there–that big gorgeous one? That's mine. I used to ride behind my husband, and never took the road on my own. Then after the kids were grown, I put my foot down. It was hard, but we finally got to be partners. Now he says he likes it better this way. He doesn't have to worry about his bike breaking down or getting a heart attach and totaling us both. I even put 'Ms.' on my license plate–and you should see my grandkids' faces when Grandma rides up on her purple Harley! "On my own again, I look out at the barren sand and tortured rocks of the Badlands, stretching for miles. I've walked there, and I know that, close up, the barren sand reveals layers of pale rose and beige and cream, and the rocks turn out to have intricate womblike openings. Even in the distant cliffs, caves of rescue appear. What seems to be one thing from a distance is very different close up. I tell you this story because it's the kind of lesson that can be learned only on the road. And also because I've come to believe that, inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. We have only to discover it–and ride. . Gloria Steinem

Dying seems less sad than having lived too little. Gloria Steinem

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be "unfeminine" so we suppress it -until it overflows. I could see that not speaking up made my mother feel worse. This was my first hint of the truism that depression is anger turned inward; thus women are twice as likely to be depressed. Gloria Steinem

In Indian Country, ” he says, “we have a different sense of time. I’m learning and you’re learning–and more will. Gloria Steinem

In our weeks of talk, movies and friendship, I watched as Wilma turned a medical ordeal into one more event in her life, but not its definition. I believe she was teaching me an intimate form of The Way. In her words: "Every day is a good day - because we are part of everything alive. Gloria Steinem

Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Gloria Steinem

I can go on the road - because I can come home. I come home - because I'm free to leave. Each way of being is more valued in the presence of the other. This balance between making camp and following the seasons is both very ancient and very new. We all need both. Gloria Steinem

I can go on the road - and I can come home. I come home - because I'm free to leave. Each way of being is more valued int he presence of the other. This balance between making camp and following the seasons is both very ancient and very new. We all need both. Gloria Steinem

I like to believe that the road is sharpening my mind and lengthening my life with surprise. Gloria Steinem

A journey - whether it's to the corner grocery or through life - is supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end, right? Well, the road is not like that at all. It's the very illogic and the juxtaposed differences of the road - combined with our search for meaning - that make travel so addictive. Gloria Steinem

I could leave–because I could return. I could return–because I knew adventure lay just beyond an open door. Instead of either/or, I discovered a whole world of and. Gloria Steinem

Each way of being is more valued in the presence of the other. This balance between making camp and following the seasons is both very ancient and very new. We all need both. Gloria Steinem

Even migrating birds know that nature doesn't demand a choice between nesting and flight. Gloria Steinem

Altogether, I can't imagine technology replacing bookstores completely, any more than movies about a country replace going there. Gloria Steinem

Hate generalizes, love specifies Gloria Steinem

Our grief is not a cry for war." That's how New Yorkers feel, " the driver said. "They know what bombing looks like, and they know the hell it is. But outside New York, people will feel guilty because they weren't here. They'll be yelling for revenge out of guilt and ignorance. Sure, we all want to catch the criminals, but only people who weren't in New York will want to bomb another country and repeat what happened here. Gloria Steinem

It still would be years before I understood the seriousness of my change of view. Much later, I recognized it in "Revolution, " the essay of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who describes the moment when a man on the edge of a crowd looks back defiantly at a policeman – and when that policeman senses a sudden refusal to accept his defining gaze – as the imperceptible moment in which rebellion is born. "All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people, " Kapuscinski writes. "They should begin with a psychological chapter – one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process – sometimes accomplished in an instant, like a shock – demands to be illustrated. Man gets rid of fear and feel free. Without that, there would be no revolution. . Gloria Steinem

In fact, caucus, a word derived from the Algonquin languages, better reflected the layers of talking circles and the goal of consensus that were at the heart of governance. Gloria Steinem

After all, hope is a form of planning. Gloria Steinem

It's important for someone who could play the game - and win - to say: 'the game isn't worth shit. Gloria Steinem

I took a part-time editing job to pay the rent. It was work I could do at home, but when suddenly I was expected to spend two days a week in the office, I quit, bought an ice cream cone, and walked the sunny streets of Manhattan. Gloria Steinem

To be just, a law has to be flexible. Gloria Steinem

Taking away the good is even more lethal than pointing out the bad. Gloria Steinem

For me, those weeks in Boston, with Wilma, became a lesson in her ability to be “of good mind, ” in her phrase, which also meant a people’s ability to survive. Gloria Steinem

I sat at a lunch table with a professor of premonotheistic spirituality, plus several women from some of the tribes in this state that has more Native Americans than any other. All agreed that the paradigm of human organization had been the circle, not the pyramid or hierarchy–and it could be again. I’d never known there was a paradigm that linked instead of ranked. It was as if I’d been assuming opposition–and suddenly found myself in a welcoming world; like putting one’s foot down for a steep stair and discovering level ground. Still, when a Laguna law student from New Mexico complained that her courses didn’t cite the Iroquois Confederacy as the model for the U.S. Constitution–or explain that this still existing Confederacy was the oldest continuing democracy in the world– I thought she was being romantic. But I read about the Constitutional Convention and discovered that Benjamin Franklin had indeed cited the Iroquois Confederacy as a model. He was well aware of its success in unifying vast areas of the United States and Canada by bringing together Native nations for mutual decisions but also allowing autonomy in local ones. He hoped the Constitution could do the same for the thirteen states. That’s why he invited two Iroquois men to Philadelphia as advisers. Among their first questions was said to be: Where are the women? . Gloria Steinem

All my years campaigning have given me one clear message: Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least. To have a democracy, you have to want one. Still, I realize this fully only by looking back. Gloria Steinem

Laughter is the only free emotion - the only one that can't be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we're in love because, if we're kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter explodes like an aha! It comes when the punch line changes everything that has gone before, when two opposites collide and make a third and when we suddenly see a new reality..laughter is an orgasm of the mind. . Gloria Steinem

In those meetings, I learned that even economic diagrams needn’t be linear. Ours was a nest of concentric circles, and an enterprise was measured by its value to each circle, from the individual and family to the community and environment. I realized that Rebecca and her colleagues were trying to do nothing less than transform the System of National Accounts, the statistical framework here and in most countries for measuring economic activity. For instance, the value of a tree depends on its estimated value or sale price, but if it is sold and cut down, there is no accounting on the debit side of the ledger for loss of oxygen, seeding of other trees, or value to the community or the environment. This group was inventing a new way of measuring profit and loss. By the end of our days together, I understood economics in a whole new way. A balance sheet really could be about balance. . Gloria Steinem

Wherever I go, bookstores are still the closest thing to a town square. Gloria Steinem

Her hope was to preserve what she called The Way, to keep it alive, for that future moment when the current obsession with excess and hierarchy imploded. Wilma said many Native people believed that the earth as a living organism would just one day shrug off the human species that was destroying it–and start over. In a less cataclysmic vision, humans would realize that we are killing our home and each other, and seek out The Way. That’s why Native people were guarding it. . Gloria Steinem

I've noticed that great political leaders are energized by conflict. I'm energized by listening to people's stories and trying to figure out shared solutions. That's the work of an organizer. Gloria Steinem

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person. Gloria Steinem

There is a small wooden viewing tower, and pamphlets from the State of Ohio, but they focus on facts–for instance, the Serpent Mound is as long as four football fields–not on meaning. In The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen, a Native poet, mythologist, and scholar, explains that Serpent Woman was one of the names of the quintessential original spirit “that pervades everything, that is capable of powerful song and radiant movement, and that moves in and out of the mind…she is both Mother and Father to all people and all creatures. She is the only creator of thought, and thought precedes creation.” In Western mythology, she might be compared to Medusa, the serpent-haired Greek goddess whose name means Knowing Woman or Protectress. She once was all-powerful–until patriarchy came along in the form of a mythic young man who chopped off her head. He was told to do this by Athena, who sprang full-blown from the mind of her father, Zeus–a goddess thought up by patriarchy and therefore motherless. There is history in what is dismissed as prehistory. Gloria Steinem

Flo especially took me in hand. When I felt I had to prove the existence of discrimination with statistics, for instance, she pulled me aside. 'If you're lying in the ditch with a truck on your ankle, ' she said patiently, 'you don't send someone to the library to find out how much the truck weighs. You get it off! Gloria Steinem

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism. Gloria Steinem

In retrospect, perhaps the biggest reason my mother was cared for but not helped for twenty years was the simplest: Her functioning was not that necessary to the world. Gloria Steinem

I sometimes wonder if I am crisscrossing my father's ghostly paths and we are entering same towns or roadside diners or the black ribbons of highways that gleam in the night rain. As if we were images in a time-lapse photograph. Gloria Steinem

We are becoming the men we wanted to marry Gloria Steinem

Someone asked me why women don't gamble as much as men do and I gave the commonsensical reply that we don't have as much money. That was a true and incomplete answer. In fact women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage. Gloria Steinem

I have met brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility with no history to guide them and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words. Gloria Steinem

Hope is a very unruly emotion. Gloria Steinem

The first problem for all of us men and women is not to learn but to unlearn. Gloria Steinem