Gloria Steinem

“Everything about aging in my experience so far has been a plus. Except the death part!”

“The AIDS crisis has brought us a consciousness of the immune system as the most important health-maintenance element, and a consciousness of how it is under attack.”

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

“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.”

“The problem for all women is we're identified by how we look instead of by our heads and our hearts.”

“Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women - from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace.”

“What I've learned is that unless it's an emergency, like a fire or brain surgery, hierarchy is not necessary and may be damaging. If you have a hierarchy, you're repeating the strengths and...”

“Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.”

“Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.”

“Women are more than smart enough to see that McCain's policies are a disaster... He is anti- every reproductive issue we've ever fought for.”

“In the suffragist and abolitionist era, there were a lot of white women and some black men and women who argued for the old hierarchy and against universal adult suffrage - often on religiou...”

“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....”

“I was never against marriage per se. Before feminism, I didn't think you had any choice. In fact, for a long time I always assumed I would get married. I just didn't see any marriages I want...”

“A parking lot attendant who's a guy makes a lot more money than a child-care attendant who's a woman.”

“What is frustrating is being told that no matter how hard I've worked, it counts less than my appearance. Although if you're not considered conventionally attractive, that also becomes an is...”

“I'd like to be played as a child by Natalie Wood. I'd have some romantic scenes as Audrey Hepburn and have gritty black-and-white scenes as Patricia Neal.”

“There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.”

“Unless we include a job as part of every citizen's right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else's idea of what need is.”

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for tha...”

“Actually, I believe there are more independents than either Republicans or Democrats, and yet those are the... that is the choice we have on the party ballot.”