Quotes from Gloria Steinem

It used to be said that this country was a child-centered one. Nothing could be further from the truth. Children have been our lowest priority, both in economic and emotional spending.

There is always one true inner voice. Trust it.

Most women's magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.

There are six million female lives lost in the world every year simply because they are female.

The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen's skin.

Romance is a means to the end of self-completion, but love is an end in itself.

Being able to support oneself allows one to choose a marriage out of love and not just economic dependence. It also allows one to risk that marriage.

I never expected to be even busier at 81, and doing more of what I love, than when I was 30.

Sexuality has always been for humans a form of communication, a way we express love and caring and bonding, not only a way we have children if we choose to.

One's enemies are always talking about 'post-feminism.' It is a word invented by people who would like to do away with feminism.

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.

Do women compete for the favours of men? Yes. They've spent 5,000 years competing.

Because we are communal creatures, if you're with people who think you're smart, you're smart, and if they think you're dumb, you're dumb.

When I had a fellowship at the Smithsonian, I asked for a couch in the office because I liked to lie down and take a break.

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

Whatever each individual woman is facing - only she knows her biggest challenge.

When I'm talking to groups that are all men, we talk about how the masculine role limits them. They often want to talk about how they missed having real fathers, real loving, present fathers, because of the way that they tried to fit the picture of masculinity.

The mark, to me, of a constructive argument is one that looks at a specific problem and says, 'What shall we do about this?' And a nonconstructive one is one that tries to label people.

The whole idea is not to figure out what you should do that will matter, but to make each thing you do reflect the values you want, because we don't know what's going to matter in the future

the new women in politics seem to be saying that we already know how to lose, thank you very much. Now we want to learn how to win.

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

The Native American cultures on this continent, most of them, were matrilineal, and some women were the chiefs. Societies were about balance.

The Constitution did not mention women when it was first written, and it still doesn't.

You know there is a person inside every baby, right? And anybody who has ever met a baby knows there is already a person in there.