Gloria Steinem

“The first resistance to social change is to say it's not necessary.”

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

“No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.”

“All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing.”

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

“Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”

“This 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.”

“Any 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.”

“I 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.”

“Rich People plan for three generations”

“However 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.”

“If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?”

“As 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.”

“Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.”

“Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.”

“Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before.”

“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.”

“It doesn’t 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 we’re arranged in a hierarchy, that we’re ranked rather than linked. I think we’ve learned that we have to contend with these divisions everywhere.”

“I think feminists and progressive Democrats err when they accusingly say to Republican women, “How can you be a Republican?” Nobody responds to that. But if you say, “Look, you didn’t leave your party. The party left you. Let’s just look at the issues and see what they are and forget about party labels and vote for ourselves,” I think people would really respond.”

“I like to say that the last five-to-ten thousand years has been an experiment that failed and it’s now time to declare the first meeting of the post-patriarchal, post-racist, post-nationalist age. So let’s add “post-theological.” Why not?”

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

“All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing.”

“You can compel fear. You can even make someone feel they're in love if they're isolated and dependent for long enough. But laughter is free.”

“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.”

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

“Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before.”

“Clearly no one knows what leadership has gone undiscovered in women of all races, and in black and other minority men.”

“Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”

“It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate.”

“Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described - and will be, after our deaths - by each of the family members who believe they know us.”

“If you find yourself drawn to an event against all logic, go. The universe is telling you something.”

“Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.”

“Women tend to be conservative in youth and get more radical as they get older because they lose power with age. So if a young woman is not a feminist, I say, 'Just wait.'”

“Men should think twice before making widow hood woman's only path to power.”

“Anger is energising. The opposite of anger is depression, which is anger turned inward.”

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

“Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.”

“I hate to generalize, but in general, both men and women suffer from ageism. Men much less because men gain power as they get older. Women lose power as they get older. Men are seen as gaining experience and being distinguished. Sons look forward to replacing their fathers.”

“It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate.”

“The state of female artists is very good. But the very definition of art has been biased in that 'art' was what men did in a European tradition and 'crafts' were what women and natives did. But it's actually all the same.”

“Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described - and will be, after our deaths - by each of the family members who believe they know us.”

“A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.”

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

“Nothing changes the gender equation more significantly than women's economic freedom.”

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

“Perfect is boring: Beauty is irregular.”

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

“Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.”

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.”

“If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?”

“Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.”