Gloria Steinem

“Mama grizzlies mate later than other bears. They have two cubs instead of four. They wait four years - about twice as long as other bears - between having cubs. And after they're pregnant, i...”

“Rich cultures, patriarchal cultures, value thin women, like ours; poor ones value fat women. But all patriarchal cultures value weak women. So for women to become physically strong is very p...”

“If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in...”

“I'm so happy that we're finally hearing the stories and voices of women who make America. We do what we see, not what we're told, so an incomplete story of this country damages everyone.”

“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...”

“The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democratic Party did. But what happened was that a lot of very right-wing Democrats, after the civil rights bill of 1964,...”

“For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less...”

“A majority of Americans want redemption for racism - for our terrible, destructive racist past - and so see a vote for Obama as redemptive.”

“Diane Keaton is good for women in and of herself. She's smart and funny and real.”

“Movements are like rivers. Dipping into them is never the same twice.”

“The only thing I can't stand is discomfort.”

“Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.”

“If you're going to have a male-dominant system, to maintain the system, you have to teach men to dominate.”

“Because I have work to care about, it is possible that I may be less difficult to get along with than other women when the double chins start to form.”

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

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

“The electoral system is not where change starts - it usually starts in communities and from the bottom up - but it is where change can be stopped.”

“We must begin to shift the emphasis of teen-age pregnancy to teen-age boys.”

“I think if women are visible in the media, truly visible, in an empowered role, it empowers us to be more visible in any area of our lives.”

“Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.”