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Gloria Steinem Quotes (1934-)
Writer, Activist, Leader
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About Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A prominent writer and key counterculture era political figure, Steinem has founded many organizations and projects and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. She is a former columnist for New York magazine and co-founded Ms. magazine.
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βLike art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before.β
β"You're always the person you were when you were born," she says impatiently. "You just keep finding new ways to express it.β
βCitizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform countries, it is the basis of any real democracy.β
βArtists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voiceβ
βLaw and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.β
βVoting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least.Gloria Steinem (2015). βMy Life on the Roadβ, p.124, Oneworld Publicationsβ
βErotica is as different from pornography as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain.β
βAs the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.β
βBlatant or subtle, pornography involves no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the clear idea that one person is dominating the other.β
β[the] idea that sexuality is only okay if it ends in reproduction oppresses womenβwhose health de-pends on separating sexuality from reproductionβas well as gay men and lesbians.β
βI have met brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and the courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.β
βThe real reasons for genital mutilation can only be understood in the context of the "patriarchy": men must control women's bodies as the means of production, and thus repress the independent power of women's sexuality.β
βIn later years, if I'm remembered at all it will be for inventing a phrase like 'reproductive freedom' ... as a phrase it includes the freedom to have children or not to. So it makes it possible for us to make a coalition.β
βWhatever the gender of the participants, all pornography including male-male gay pornography is an imitation of the male-female, conqueror-victim paradigm, and almost all of it actually portrays or im-plies enslaved women and master.β
βAny woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.β
βI like to say that the last five-to-ten thousand years has been an experiment that failed and itβs now time to declare the first meeting of the post-patriarchal, post-racist, post-nationalist age. So letβs add βpost-theological.β Why not?β
βIt doesnβt surprise me to learn that there is bias and sexism everywhere, just like there are problems of racism and homophobia stemming from the whole notion that weβre arranged in a hierarchy, that weβre ranked rather than linked. I think weβve learned that we have to contend with these divisions everywhere.β
βHowever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.β
βIβve learned from these events that self-esteem plays as much a part in the destiny of nations as it does in the lives of individuals; that self-hatred leads to the need either to dominate or to be dominated; that citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform their countries; in short, that self-esteem is the basis of any real democracy.β
βGender is the remaining caste system that still cuts deep enough, and spreads wide enough, to be confused with the laws of nature. To uncover the difference between what is and what could be, we may need the βAha!β that comes from exchanging subject for object, the flash of recognition that starts with a smile, the moment of changed viewpoint that turns the world upside down.β
βThese patriarchal controls limit men's sexuality too ... That's why men are asked symbolically to submit the sexual part of themselves and their sons to patriarchal authority, which seems to be the origin of male circumcision, a practice that, even as advocates admit, is medically unnecessary 90% of the time. Speaking for myself, I stand with many brothers in eliminating that practice too.β
βI think feminists and progressive Democrats err when they accusingly say to Republican women, βHow can you be a Republican?β Nobody responds to that. But if you say, βLook, you didnβt leave your party. The party left you. Letβs just look at the issues and see what they are and forget about party labels and vote for ourselves,β I think people would really respond.β
βThis is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race, because they are easy, 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.β
βI always wanted to put a sign up on the road to Yale saying, 'Beware: Deconstruction Ahead'. Academics are forced to write in language no one can understand so that they get tenure. They have to say 'discourse', not 'talk'. Knowledge that is not accessible is not helpful. It becomes aerialisedβand I think it's important that women's experiences be given a narrative.β
βI think the fact that I've become a symbol for the women's movement is somewhat accidental. A woman member of Congress, for example, might be identified as a member of Congress; it doesn't mean she's any less of a feminist but she's identified by her nearest male analog. Well, I don't have a male analog so the press has to identify me with the movement. I suppose I could be referred to as a journalist, but because Ms. is part of a movement and not just a typical magazine, I'm more likely to be identified with the movement. There's no other slot to put me in.β
βI always thought that "humanist" was a good word long before I understood that anyone thought it was a bad word. It seems to me that it means you believe in the great potential and the best of human beings, so I didnβt have to overcome anything to accept this award; it seemed an unmitigated honor. And since the ultra-right wing has tried so hard to make it a bad wordβ βhumanistβ has been demonized in much the same way that the word βfeministβ has β it seemed especially important to identify as humanist and support humanist groups.β
βIt [abortion] is supposed to make us a bad person. But I must say, I never felt that. I used to sit and try and figure out how old the child would be, trying to make myself feel guilty. But I never could! I think the person who said: 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament' was right. Speaking for myself, I knew it was the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life. I wasn't going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life, and therefore it felt positive. But still, I didn't tell anyone. Because I knew that out there it wasn't [positive].β
βI 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.β
βRegarding the idea that the womenβs movement is white and middle class β a fair share of the country is white and middle class. And certainly, there are racist white women. Certainly, there are sexist black men. All those things are true. But the other thing thatβs never said is that black women are much more likely to support feminist issues than white women. It makes sense because theyβre much more likely to be on the paid labor force than white women. And if youβve experienced discrimination for one reason, youβre probably more likely to recognize it for another reason.β
βThe men Iβve met who were the best allies of feminism are those who see their stake in it; who see that they themselves are being limited by a culture that deprives men of human qualities deemed feminine, which are actually just the qualities necessary to raise kids β empathy and attention to detail and patience. Men have those qualities too but theyβre not encouraged to develop them. And so they miss out on raising their kids, and they actually shorten their own lives. When men realize that feminism is a universal good that affects them in very intimate ways then I think they really become allies and leaders.β
βThe Arab Spring did a great deal for women because the person who spread the word in the first place was a woman. Women participated in it; they were fully out there in the street. Nawal El Saadawi is a founding figure of Egyptian and Middle Eastern feminism who wrote a book opposing female genital mutilation (of which she is a victim). Sheβs been banned. Sheβs been in prison. Sheβs now in her eighties and during the Arab Spring she was like the wise woman of Liberation Square, sitting in the middle of it as young women and young men came to her for instruction, for blessings, and so on.
But itβs very often the case with revolutionary moments that women are present but then theyβre drummed out of it afterwards.β
But itβs very often the case with revolutionary moments that women are present but then theyβre drummed out of it afterwards.β
βWhat will exist is a variety of alternative life-styles. Since the population explosion dictates that childbearing be kept to a minimum, parents-and-children will be only one of many "families": couples, age groups, working groups, mixed communes, blood-related clans, class groups, creative groups. Single women will have the right to stay single without ridicule, without the attitudes now betrayed by "spinster" and "bachelor." Lesbians or homosexuals will no longer be denied legally binding marriages, complete with mutual-support agreements and inheritance rights. Paradoxically, the number of homosexuals may get smaller. With fewer over-possessive mothers and fewer fathers who hold up an impossibly cruel or perfectionist idea of manhood, boys will be less likely to be denied or reject their identity as males.β
βIf it were up to me, I would not define myself by the absence of something; "theist" is a believer, so with "atheist" youβre defining yourself by the absence of something. I think human beings work on yes, not on no. β¦ humanist is a great term. β¦except that humanism sometimes is not seen as inclusive of spirituality. To me, spirituality is the opposite of religion. Itβs the belief that all living things share some value. So I would include the word spiritual just because it feels more inclusive to me. Native Americans do this when they offer thanks to Mother Earth and praise the interconnectedness of βthe two-legged and the four, the feathered and the clawed,β and so on. Itβs lovely. β¦ because itβs not about not believing. Itβs about rejecting a god who looks like the ruling class.β
βIf you think about Martin Luther King and others in the leadership of the Civil Rights movement, they were all college-educated, middle class people. Nobody tries to diminish the Civil Rights movement by saying they were middle class.
Itβs true that the National Organization for Women in its early years was white middle class. But once it was joined by younger women from civil rights groups like SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) it changed profoundly. In any case, my lifeβs ambition is to make white women as smart as black women. Because the group of women who still vote against their own self-interest are white married women.β
Itβs true that the National Organization for Women in its early years was white middle class. But once it was joined by younger women from civil rights groups like SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) it changed profoundly. In any case, my lifeβs ambition is to make white women as smart as black women. Because the group of women who still vote against their own self-interest are white married women.β
βI'm not sure feminism should require an adjective. Believing in the full social, political, and economic quality of women, which is what the dictionary says "feminism" means, is enough to make a revolution in itself. But if I had to choose only one adjective, I still would opt for radical feminist. I know patriarchs keep equating that word with violent or man-hating, crazy or extremist β though being a plain vanilla feminist doesn't keep one safe from such epithets either, nor does "I'm not a feminist, but ..." Nonetheless, radical seems an honest indication of the fundamental change we have in mind and says what probably is the case: the false division of human nature into βfeminineβ and βmasculineβ is the root of all other divisions into subject and object, active and passive β the beginning of hierarchy.β
βThere were never that many women stand-up comics in the past because the power to make people laugh is also a power that gets people upset. But the ones who were performing were making jokes on themselves usually and now thatβs changed. So there are no rules exactly but I think if you see a whole group of people only being self-deprecating, itβs a problem.
But I have always employed humor, and I think itβs absolutely crucial that we do because, among other things, humor is the only free emotion. I mean, you can compel fear, as we know. You can compel love, actually, if somebody is isolated and dependent β itβs like the Stockholm syndrome. But you canβt compel laughter. It happens when two things come together and make a third unexpectedly. It happens when you learn something, too. I think it was Einstein who said he had to be careful when he shaved because if he thought of something suddenly, heβd laugh and cut himself.
So I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, donβt separate laughter and seriousness. Thereβs none of this kind of false Episcopalian solemnity.β
But I have always employed humor, and I think itβs absolutely crucial that we do because, among other things, humor is the only free emotion. I mean, you can compel fear, as we know. You can compel love, actually, if somebody is isolated and dependent β itβs like the Stockholm syndrome. But you canβt compel laughter. It happens when two things come together and make a third unexpectedly. It happens when you learn something, too. I think it was Einstein who said he had to be careful when he shaved because if he thought of something suddenly, heβd laugh and cut himself.
So I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, donβt separate laughter and seriousness. Thereβs none of this kind of false Episcopalian solemnity.β
βIf someone wants to be called a sex worker, I call them a sex worker. But there is a problem with that term, because while it was adopted in goodwill, traffickers have taken it and essentially said, βOkay, if itβs work like any other, somebody has to do it.β In Nevada, there was a time when you couldnβt get unemployment unless you tried sex work first. The same was true in Germany. So the state became a procurer because of the argument that sex is work like any other. This is not a good thing.
I also do not feel proud when I stand in the Sonagachi, the biggest brothel area in all of South Asia. Itβs in Kolkata, and everything is written in Bengali except βSEX WORK.β And the term is used in various sinister ways by sex traffickers, who even describe what they do β which is to kidnap or buy people out of villages β as βfacilitated migration.β
Iβve only ever met one woman who actually was a prostitute of her own free will. She didnβt have a pimp. She could pick and choose her customers. Thatβs so rare. So we have to look at the reality and not romanticize it. We have to be clear that you have the right to sell your own body but nobody has the right to sell anybody elseβs body. No one has that right.β
I also do not feel proud when I stand in the Sonagachi, the biggest brothel area in all of South Asia. Itβs in Kolkata, and everything is written in Bengali except βSEX WORK.β And the term is used in various sinister ways by sex traffickers, who even describe what they do β which is to kidnap or buy people out of villages β as βfacilitated migration.β
Iβve only ever met one woman who actually was a prostitute of her own free will. She didnβt have a pimp. She could pick and choose her customers. Thatβs so rare. So we have to look at the reality and not romanticize it. We have to be clear that you have the right to sell your own body but nobody has the right to sell anybody elseβs body. No one has that right.β
βThis war against women started a long time ago with old Democrats who took over the Republican Party, which was, before that, the very first to support the Equal Rights Amendment. Even when the National Womenβs Political Caucus started, there was a whole Republican feminist entity. But beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, right-wing Democrats like Jesse Helms began to leave the Democratic Party and gradually take over the GOP.
So I always feel I have to apologize to my friends who are Republicans because theyβve basically lost their party. Ronald Reagan couldnβt get nominated today because he was supportive of immigrant rights. Barry Goldwater was pro-choice. George H.W. Bush supported Planned Parenthood. No previous Republicans except for George W. Bush would be acceptable to the people who now run the GOP. They are not Republicans. They are the American version of the Taliban. β¦ Theyβve taken over one of our two great parties. This causes people to wrongly think that the country is equally divided but if we look at the public opinion polls, it isnβt. So, I canβt think of anything more crucial than real Republicans taking back the GOP.β
So I always feel I have to apologize to my friends who are Republicans because theyβve basically lost their party. Ronald Reagan couldnβt get nominated today because he was supportive of immigrant rights. Barry Goldwater was pro-choice. George H.W. Bush supported Planned Parenthood. No previous Republicans except for George W. Bush would be acceptable to the people who now run the GOP. They are not Republicans. They are the American version of the Taliban. β¦ Theyβve taken over one of our two great parties. This causes people to wrongly think that the country is equally divided but if we look at the public opinion polls, it isnβt. So, I canβt think of anything more crucial than real Republicans taking back the GOP.β
βI think most social justice movements take the words that are used against them and make them good words. Thatβs partly how βblackβ came back into usage. Before we said βcolored person,β or βNegro.β Then came βBlack Power,β βBlack Pride,β and βBlack Is Beautifulβ to make it a good word.
"Witch" was another word I remember reclaiming in the 1970s. There was a group called Womenβs International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH). They all went down to Wall Street and hexed it. And Wall Street fell five points the next day; it was quite amazing! βQueerβ and βgayβ are other examples. β¦ I think we all have the power to name ourselves. I try to call people what it is they wish to be called. But we can take the sting out of epithets and bad words by using them. Actually, I had done that earlier with βslutβ because when I went back to Toledo, Ohio, which is where I was in high school and junior high school, I was on a radio show with a bunch of women. A man called up and called me βa slut from East Toledo,β which is doubly insulting because East Toledo is the wrong side of town. I thought, when Iβd lived here I would have been devastated by this. But by this time I thought, you know, thatβs a pretty good thing to be. Iβm putting it on my tombstone: "Here lies the slut from East Toledo."β
"Witch" was another word I remember reclaiming in the 1970s. There was a group called Womenβs International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH). They all went down to Wall Street and hexed it. And Wall Street fell five points the next day; it was quite amazing! βQueerβ and βgayβ are other examples. β¦ I think we all have the power to name ourselves. I try to call people what it is they wish to be called. But we can take the sting out of epithets and bad words by using them. Actually, I had done that earlier with βslutβ because when I went back to Toledo, Ohio, which is where I was in high school and junior high school, I was on a radio show with a bunch of women. A man called up and called me βa slut from East Toledo,β which is doubly insulting because East Toledo is the wrong side of town. I thought, when Iβd lived here I would have been devastated by this. But by this time I thought, you know, thatβs a pretty good thing to be. Iβm putting it on my tombstone: "Here lies the slut from East Toledo."β
βI was perversely delighted to see the Catholic Church and the Vatican go after nuns because I think they made a major error. People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and itβs just too much.
Their stance on abortion is also quite dishonest historically, because as the Jesuits (who always seem to be more honest historians of the Catholic Church) point out, the Church approved of and even regulated abortion well into the mid-1800s. The whole question of ensoulment was determined by the date of baptism. But after the Napoleonic Wars there werenβt enough soldiers anymore and the French were quite sophisticated about contraception. So Napoleon III prevailed on Pope Pius IX to declare abortion a mortal sin, in return for which Pope Pius IX got all the teaching positions in the French schools and support for the doctrine of papal infallibility. β¦ My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Floβs book, Abortion Rap (1971), and the driver turned around and said, βHoney, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.β I wish Iβd gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.β
Their stance on abortion is also quite dishonest historically, because as the Jesuits (who always seem to be more honest historians of the Catholic Church) point out, the Church approved of and even regulated abortion well into the mid-1800s. The whole question of ensoulment was determined by the date of baptism. But after the Napoleonic Wars there werenβt enough soldiers anymore and the French were quite sophisticated about contraception. So Napoleon III prevailed on Pope Pius IX to declare abortion a mortal sin, in return for which Pope Pius IX got all the teaching positions in the French schools and support for the doctrine of papal infallibility. β¦ My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Floβs book, Abortion Rap (1971), and the driver turned around and said, βHoney, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.β I wish Iβd gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.β
Gloria Steinem Quotes by Topic
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Gloria Steinem on Pornography 2 quotes
βPornography is about dominance and often pain. Erotica is about mutuality and always pleasure.β
Gloria Steinem on Soldiers 2 quotes
βIf you're going to get groups of men to risk their humanity, health, and lives in wars of offense, the traditional way is not to pay them a lot, but to addict them to the "cult of masculinity." You have to convince them they're not "real men" unless they kill and conquer.β
Gloria Steinem on Authoritarianism 2 quotes
β[C]ontrolling reproduction has always been the first step in any hierarchical or authoritarian government. Those who are authoritarian or hierarchical in their outlook in this, you know, still patriarchal time look to control the one thing they don't have as the first effort in creating a hierarchy.β
What Gloria Steinem Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Gloria Steinem shared regarding contemporaries.
Gloria Steinem on Wonder Woman 2 quotes
βIf we had all read more about Wonder Woman and less about Dick and Jane the new wave of the feminist revolution might have happened less painfully and sooner.β
Gloria Steinem on Leslie Marmon Silko
βLeslie Marmon Silko's writing takes us into old worlds of consciousness inside the present, and inside ourselves.β
Gloria Steinem on Germaine Greer
Gloria Steinem on Marilyn Monroe
βI remember her on the screen, huge as a colossus doll, mincing and whispering and simply hoping her way into total vulnerability.β
Gloria Steinem on Mary Daly
βShe was a great trained philosopher, theologian and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy - or any idea that domination is natural - in its most defended place, which is religion.β
Quotes About Gloria Steinem
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Gloria Steinem from others.
Clarissa Pinkola EstΓ©s on Gloria Steinem
βJung drew a circle and divided it into four parts, and said a man is three-quarters masculine and one quarter feminine. A woman is three-quarters feminine and one quarter masculine. And thatβs a good start. The problem is that he says this is the way it should be, and thatβs not the way it is. It is too rigid a form. Some men I have met are three-quarters feminine and one-quarter masculine, and the one-quarter masculine they are β jump back β very strong, fuerte, strong! But they have tremendous feminine development because it is who they are. It is from the souls, not an overlay from cultural family. Gloria Steinem is a great example of a woman who has far more masculine development then she has feminine development. Although now her feminine development appears as though it is coming now. She is 55 -60 years old and now it is coming. So whatever we have, as you know, the role in life is to develop it to its fullness. But also the challenges is to develop its balance, which is also its opposite.β
Bell Hooks on Gloria Steinem
βEven the kind of feminist women that I know, weβve had great discussions here about reproductive rights. Our primary issue, as women and men who are our allies in the struggle, is not the right to have abortion, it is to have reproductive rights, of which abortion is one. I often have this discussion with my good comrade Gloria SteinemβIβve not convinced her. Iβve said, βDo you really believe that women in the world who are just trying to get clean water and feed their children and to survive, are running around being upset that they canβt have an abortion?β This is a very small example of how First World women in our society, mostly white, can impose our sense of what is important for women in the world. As such, that is a form of violence. Because we are not respecting the lives of the millions of women in the world for whom feminist issue is ending war, having food, ending poverty, ending disease.β
Dolores Huerta "Reflections on Revolutionary Women" on Gloria Steinem
Jamaica Kincaid on working for on Gloria Steinem
βAt first, the editors there said they didnβt want staff writers but that if I had an idea for a piece theyβd look at it. So I went home and called up Ms. magazine, and I said, βIβd like to speak to Gloria Steinem.β She picked up, and I told her Iβd like to interview her. She said, βOf course.β I was just somebody off the street, but that was the original solidarity of feminism.β
Frederica Mathewes-Green on Gloria Steinem
βIf we adopt Gloria Steinem's definition of a feminist β "Anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men" β most of us are probably feminists, too. This was a radical innovation two thousand years ago, when the first Christians proclaimed the equal value of all people.β
Misattributed Quotes
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About Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A prominent writer and key counterculture era political figure, Steinem has founded many organizations and projects and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. She is a former columnist for New York magazine and co-founded Ms. magazine.