Gloria Steinem

“You can see the absence of women in governing bodies from Congress to state legislators, on corporate boards, in tenured positions in academia, and as forepeople in factories.”

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

“Burnout is a way of telling you that your form of activism was perhaps not very full circle.”

“Gerda Lerner was fierce, brilliant and unique. She lived history by her bravery, restored history by her scholarship, and democratized its study by her activism.”

“There's no shortage of great young activists.”

“'Ms.' always flouted the rules of the ad world that say, especially for products directed at women, that the ad must be connected to the editorial. You don't have food ads unless you have re...”

“From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence - and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified.”

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

“When I was little, I knew that I was not adopted, but I actually imagined and hoped that I was - and that my real parents were going to come get me.”

“The most hurtful thing is not what comes from our adversaries, it's what comes from our friends.”

“The error that we tend to make is that we think that women's magazines are what editors want and what their readers want - and thus are social indicators - when, in fact, they are what adver...”

“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.”

“In a general way, anything that affects men is taken more seriously than anything that affects only women.”

“Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both...”

“I looked up affirmative action once in Wikipedia, and it said, 'A measure by which white men are discriminated against,' and I got so mad.”

“There's been the same kind of demonizing of the word 'feminism' as words like 'liberal,' 'affirmative action,' and so on.”

“Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them.”

“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 gaini...”

“I'm not saying that women leaders would eliminate violence. We are not more moral than men; we are only uncorrupted by power so far. When we do acquire power, we might turn out to have an eq...”

“The thing about aging is all your old lovers, pretty much if they were really friends, become your family. It's great. You have those terrible feelings of possessiveness and uncertainty go o...”