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Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem Quotes

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Famous Gloria Steinem Quotes

“Too much of our lives corresponds to the 'lost-wallet' theory of life. You lose something, spend a long time finding it, and then feel grateful to be back where you started.”

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Book:Moving Beyond Words: Essays on Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender
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“If you listen to the Catholic bishops you would think that Catholics are against contraception and legal abortion, but if you ask actual Catholics, you discover that more than 90% of Catholic women use contraception and Catholic women seem to need and choose legal abortion at about the same rate as everybody else. The problem is that the backlash occupies positions of power, not that it represents the majority of people.”

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Author:Gloria Steinem
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“You can't be what you can't see, so it's harder for women to say, "I'm going to be a [presidential] candidate," so we need to go to women who would be good candidates and say, "You would be a good candidate and I'll help you." It's not a passive question, it's not when will it happen, but an active question, when will we make it happen?”

NeedsHelpingHappensWould BeHarderActiveBe GoodPresidentialCandidatesPassiveMake It HappenPresidential Candidate
Author:Gloria Steinem
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“If we were going to address what involves the biggest number of women, reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right - like freedom of speech, the most basic right. Freedom from violence, since women worldwide are still like 70% at least of all victims of violence. Equality in the family, democracy in the family, since the family is the microcosm of everything else, so if you have inequality and violence in the family, it normalizes it in the street, for foreign policy, for every place else.”

IfsHumansStillsNumbersDemocracyViolenceStreetsPolicySpeechVictimFundamentalsInequalityAddressesForeign PolicyFreedom Of SpeechMicrocosm
Author:Gloria Steinem
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“Whatever each individual woman is facing; only she knows her biggest challenge. However, if we add up the problems that affect the biggest numbers of women, then issues having to do with physical safety and reproduction are still the biggest. Female bodies are still the battleground, whether that means restricting freedom, birth control and safe abortion in order to turn them into factories, or abandoning female infants because females are less valuable for everything other than reproduction.”

IfsKnowsMeanStillsProblemBodyOrderTurnsIndividualChallengesNumbersIssuesBirthSafeFemaleSafetyAddValuableAbortionFactoriesInfantReproductionBirth ControlFemale BodyBattleground
Author:Gloria Steinem
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“Women well understood how to restrict birth through timing of sexual intercourse, herbs and abortifacients. I suspect the focus on men's control of women as the means of reproduction came later, in the last five percent or so of human history, with the idea of children as property and labor. One needed to have as many as possible, never mind about women's health or mobility or brainpower. Women's freedom was restricted in order to make sure of the paternity and ownership of children.”

MenMindHumansWellsMeanChildrenIdeasLastsOrderFiveFocusBirthNeededPercentUnderstoodLaborPropertySuspectsOwnershipTimingHuman HistoryIntercourseHerbsReproductionMobilityWomen's Health
Author:Gloria Steinem
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