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Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem Quotes

Journalist

Gloria Steinem is an American journalist and social activist, renowned for her leadership in the women's rights movement. Born on March 25, 1934, she was one of the founding editors of Ms. magazine and played a pivotal role in the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Steinem's work has covered a wide range of issues from gender equality to environmental justice.

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Famous Gloria Steinem Quotes

“Life after 50 or 60 is itself another country, as different as adolescence is from childhood, or as adulthood is from adolescence - and just as adventurous.”

Different Country Childhood Adulthood Adolescence Adventurous

Author:Gloria Steinem

“People say, 'Oh, you've sacrificed so much, now's the time to do something for yourself.' I mean, please - that is so wrong. I don't think I've sacrificed one f-king thing.”

People Thinking Mean Kings Please

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The road has been viewed as a male turf. If you think of the classic "Odyssey," of, you know, classical literature or Jack Kerouac or almost any road story, it's really about a man on the road. There's an assumption that the road is too dangerous for women.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Men Has Beens Stories Literature Dangerous Males Classic Assumption Odyssey Turf Classical Literature

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I don't want to die saying but, you know? There's so much I want to do, so I want more time.”

Knows Want Dies More Time Wanting To Die

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Liberation does not come from outside.”

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I would write about issues and people I met along the way, but not about the process and the life of being on the road.”

People Way Writing Process Issues Mets

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I hope readers will consider, especially in this age of the World Wide Web, that as miraculous as it is, we still need to be in the same room with all five senses if we are to empathize with each other.”

Ifs World Needs Stills Age Rooms Five Reader Wide Senses Miraculous Five Senses World Wide Web

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The highest use of the Web is getting the information and identifying the places and the possibility of being together physically.”

Use Together Information Possibility Highest Identifying Being Together

Author:Gloria Steinem

“It turns out that we literally don't empathize unless we're physically present - that the oxytocin, the famous "tend and befriend" hormone is not produced unless we're present with all five senses.”

Turns Five Senses Hormones Five Senses Oxytocin

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The road itself is informative, because it forces you to respond spontaneously and to encounter the unexpected. It forces you to reassess what you felt about people or issues or places, and it forces you to live in the present.”

People Force Felt Issues Encounters Unexpected Live In The Present Informative

Author:Gloria Steinem

“You have no choice but to live in the present, if you're really being open to events and people as they come along.”

People Ifs Choices Events Live In The Present

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Violence against women is clearly not solved, not at all solved, and the reasons for it, which are controlling women's bodies in order to control reproduction, are definitely not solved.”

Reason Body Order Violence Reproduction Violence Against Women Women's Bodies Controlling Women

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The belief that women should control our own bodies may be a majority belief, but the minority that believes otherwise is against not only safe and legal abortions but contraception and even sex education.”

Should Believe May Body Belief Sex Safe Majority Abortion Minorities Contraception Sex Education

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Progress is not automatic, it depends on what we do every day. So any statement of ownership of our own bodies, however that occurs in our individual lives or our community or our collective lives, is crucial.”

Body Life Is Individual Community Progress Depends Statements Collectives Crucial Ownership Our Community Individual Life

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Any insistence on equal pay is crucial and any redefinition of work to include caregiving work so that it also has an economic value, at least at replacement level, that's crucial. So change does come from the bottom up, and it will come from girls and women and men who understand that for us all to be human beings instead of being grouped by gender is good for them, too.”

Men Humans Doe Values Girl Human Beings Levels Pay Economic Equal Men And Women Bottom Gender Crucial Replacements Insistence Equal Pay Caregiving Economic Value

Author:Gloria Steinem

“There's going to be a demand for perfectionism on the part of Hillary Clinton, or any other pro-equality woman candidate, that would not be made of men. There are going to be attacks based on different standards of morality and different standards of dress and physical attractiveness.”

Men Made Different Morality Demand Standards Dresses Clinton Candidates Perfectionism Attractiveness

Author:Gloria Steinem

“It would be a disaster to have Sarah Palin or Carly Fiorina in the White House, so it's not just a woman, but a woman who stands for the majority needs of women. It's not just getting a job for one woman, it's making life better for all women.”

Needs Would Be Jobs House White Majority Disaster White House One Woman Palin

Author:Gloria Steinem

“There's one logical generational difference and that is that young women will have more chances to support a female president than older women. Older women feel it's their last chance, so that's just a factual, obvious difference. But other than that it depends on experience, on individual experience.”

Feels Lasts Young Individual President Differences Chance Support Depends Female Obvious Logical Young Women Factual Older Women Last Chance Female President

Author:Gloria Steinem

“If [George] Zimmerman had been arrested for domestic violence, Trayvon Martin might still be alive.”

Ifs Stills Might Alive Violence Domestic Violence Arrested Trayvon Martin Trayvon Zimmerman

Author:Gloria Steinem

“They're all qualities wrongly called feminine: attention to detail, patience, empathy. I don't have children, but I was raised as a female to have those qualities because they're perceived as feminine. Until men are raised with those qualities, too, they won't have the full circle of human qualities.”

Men Humans Children Attention Quality Empathy Female Raised Details Circles Feminine Human Qualities Attention To Detail Full Circle

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Women, we tend to become whole people by venturing outside of the home, learning to aspire, to achieve, to deal with conflict - all these qualities that are wrongly called masculine.”

People Whole Home Deals Quality Achieve Conflict Aspire Masculine

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Men tend to gain wholeness by acquiring the qualities that are wrongly called feminine.”

Men Quality Gains Feminine Wholeness

Author:Gloria Steinem

“For a man to say, "I have to leave work now because I need to do something with my kids," it's sometimes viewed as a career killer. He doesn't have the right drive. So when they depart from their gender roles, they face some of the same restrictions.”

Men Needs Sometimes Kids Faces Careers Roles Gender Killers Restriction Gender Roles

Author:Gloria Steinem

“More and more men are raising children or want to be close to their kids. They don't want to just lead work-obsessed lives and end up 50 years later with an engraved watch.”

Men Want Years Children Ends Kids Watches Obsessed Raising Children Engraved

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We are literally linked in a circle, including with nature, as well as with other human beings. Old societies didn't have and still don't have "he" and "she." They don't have gendered pronouns. They don't have a word for nature, because we're not separate from nature.”

Humans Wells Stills Human Beings Including Circles Linked Pronouns Being Old

Author:Gloria Steinem

“What we experience in our childhoods that comes to seem normal, or even inevitable, is that if you are placed in a hierarchy, you probably are immediately anxious about going further down and you're striving to go further up, so your energies get placed into becoming "more than," or at least not becoming "less than," instead of becoming "part of."”

Ifs Seems Energy Childhood Becoming Normal Our Children Down And Strive Inevitable Anxious Hierarchy Becoming More

Author:Gloria Steinem

“In the late '60s, people were saying we need power to, not power over. Power to do, accomplish, create, not power over other people.”

People Needs Late Accomplish Power Over Others

Author:Gloria Steinem

“It's endlessly interesting to be organizing and hearing possible solutions or thinking of possible solutions and how to put efforts together. It makes everything else boring, actually.”

Thinking Together Interesting Effort Solutions Boring Hearing

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I would say don't worry about what you should do, do whatever you can. And seek companions with shared values.”

Should Values Worry Companion Shared Values

Author:Gloria Steinem

“If we're isolated, we come to feel powerless when we're not.”

Ifs Feels Isolated Powerless

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I would say that reproductive freedom comes first, then violence and economics.”

Firsts Violence Economics

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I don't think there's any country that has equal pay, not even Sweden or Iceland.”

Thinking Country Pay Equal Sweden Equal Pay Iceland

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We need to raise our sons more like our daughters. We need to relieve them of this burden of the idea that to be masculine they have to be superior, which is what they get addicted to, and why both racism and sexism are crimes that I call superiority crimes.”

Needs Ideas Crime Son Racism Daughter Raises Burden Superiors Sexism Superiority Masculine Our Daughter

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We need to take violence against women seriously. It is the biggest indicator of whether a country is violent inside itself, and whether it will be militarily violent against another country.”

Needs Country Violence Violent Violence Against Women Indicators

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The androcentric, patriarchal cultures, whatever you want to call it, are quite new. So, every economic statement should start with reproduction, not production. Every statement for human rights ought to include reproduction as a basic human right, like freedom of speech.”

Want Should Humans Culture Rights Economic Ought Speech Human Rights Productions Statements Freedom Of Speech Reproduction

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The power of the state stops at our skins. They can't restrict contraception [or] abortion. They can't take our kidneys. Bodily integrity is a principle.”

States Principles Integrity Skins Abortion Kidneys Contraception

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make.”

People Should Believe Real Care I Believe Decision Including Health Care Transgender Authentic Life

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We move away from only the binary boxes of "masculine" or "feminine" and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.”

Humans Moving Identity Expression Boxes Feminine Masculine Continuum Binary

Author:Gloria Steinem

“More than poverty, more than degree of education, religion, access to natural resources, even degree of democracy - violence against females is the biggest indicator of whether a country will be violent in itself or be willing to use military violence against another country.”

Country Use Natural Poverty Democracy Violence Military Willing Degrees Resources Female Access Violent Natural Resources Indicators

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We have to know before we can act.”

Author:Gloria Steinem

“We know from many forms of suffering that what is important first is a witness - people want to know that someone else knows what's happening, that they're not alone - and someone who listens to what is needed and tries to help.”

People Knows Want Trying Firsts Important Helping Form Suffering Needed Happenings Witness Not Alone

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Racism is not real, it's made up, it's cruel, it can be stopped.”

Made Real Racism

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Sexism is not inevitable. It's only about controlling reproduction and therefore controlling women.”

Inevitable Sexism Reproduction Controlling Women

Author:Gloria Steinem

“If we have reproductive freedom, that is the ability to decide for ourselves when and whether to have children and what happens to our bodies, sexism can be reversed. It's the understanding that it's not inevitable. I think that is crucial.”

Ifs Thinking Children Body Happens Understanding Ability Inevitable Sexism Crucial

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I think that there is clearly an understanding that the women's market is an important market. It's still often perceived as separate when it's not.”

Thinking Stills Important Understanding

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The problem with Superwoman is that she has to do it all, inside the home and outside the home. If there is a man there doing half of it, that's a different world.”

Ifs Men World Different Problem Home Half Different Worlds Superwoman

Author:Gloria Steinem

“Am I a capitalist? No. Why would I be a capitalist? I have no capital. Most people have no capital. But to punish the individual for the sins of the system makes no sense. We're responsible for changing it, yes. But we can't actually invent another universe, so we have to start where we are.”

People Universe Individual Sin Responsible Capitalist

Author:Gloria Steinem

“One of our biggest problems in terms of effectiveness is that we have hopes, but our opposition has interests. We measure everything against our hopes, including politicians that we are voting for or choosing amongst. We don't measure up to our hopes ourselves. How can we expect anybody else to?”

Problem Term Interest Politician Including Opposition Voting Effectiveness Having Hope

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The anti-equality right wing has interests. We have to learn to stand up for our interests. To seek purity is self-defeating and a stereotype in itself: women have to be pure, women are not concerned about money.”

Self Interest Pure Concerned Wings Purity Stereotype Right Wing

Author:Gloria Steinem

“The idea that women don't smell fine on our own is a problem.”

Ideas Problem Fine Smell

Author:Gloria Steinem

About the Author

Born: March 25, 1934
Known for: Journalist
Quotes: 620

Related Topics

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