Gloria Steinem

Activist

1934-03-25

Quotes by Gloria Steinem

• Dying seems less sad than having lived too little.

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• Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't.

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• Before she leaves, my new friend tells me to look out of the big picture window at the parking lot.See that purple Harley out there— that big gorgeous one? That's mine. I used to ride behind my husband, and never took the road on my own. Then after the kids were grown, I put my foot down. It was hard, but we finally got to be partners. Now he says he likes it better this way. He doesn't have to worry about his bike breaking down or getting a heart attach and totaling us both. I even put 'Ms.' on my license plate— and you should see my grandkids' faces when Grandma rides up on her purple Harley!On my own again, I look out at the barren sand and tortured rocks of the Badlands, stretching for miles. I've walked there, and I know that, close up, the barren sand reveals layers of pale rose and beige and cream, and the rocks turn out to have intricate womblike openings. Even in the distant cliffs, caves of rescue appear.What seems to be one thing from a distance is very different close up.I tell you this story because it's the kind of lesson that can be learned only on the road. And also because I've come to believe that, inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle.We have only to discover it— and ride.

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• Father Egan continues to write about everything from the injustice of current wars to the past and future of Catholic mysticism.In the Catholic Reporter, he publishes an article titled Celibacy, a Vague Old Cross on Priestly Backs, and explains that it started only in 1139 when the church no longer wanted to be financially responsible for the children of priests.

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• An older man who seems to be the leader of the Jesus Tshirt group says that the Bible forbids abortion in its commandment "Thou shall not kill."But being in the Bible Belt, people really know their Bible, and an older woman cites Exodus 21:22–23, a passage that says a man who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry must pay a fine but is not charged with murder, not unless the woman herself dies.Thus the Bible is making clear, that a dependent life is not the same as an independent life.

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• Inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle.

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• I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be unfeminine, so we suppress it-until it overflows.

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• Mrs. Greene made me understand the parallels between race and caste--- and how women's bodies were used to perpetuate both. Different prisons. Same key.

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• When people ask me why I still have hope and energy after all these years, I always say: Because I travel.

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• The idea that women are 'our own worst enemies' forces us to admit that we don't have the power to be, even if we wanted too.

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• My father did not have to trade dying alone for the joys of the road. My mother did not have to give up a journey of her own to have a home. Neither do I. Neither do you.

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• I was angry because young men in politics were treated like rising stars and young women were treated like - well - young women. {...}I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body, and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one.

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• I also noticed that humor was even more of a survival tactic here than in most women's groups. As one asked: What did Columbus call primitive? Answer: Equal women.

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• You should write about take no-shit women like me. Girls need to know they can break the rules p.79

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• Sometimes I think the only real division into two is between people who divide everything into two and those who don't.

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• I'm not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. It's time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.

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• Women are always better liked if we sacrifice ourselves for something bigger - and something bigger always means including men, even though something bigger for men doesn't usually mean including women.

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• Long before all these divisions were opened between home and the road, betweens a woman's place and a man's world, humans followed the crops, the seasons, traveling with their families, our companions, animals, our tents. We built campfires and moved from place to place. This way of traveling is still in our cellular memory. Living things have evolved as travelers, Even migrating birds know that nature doesn't demand a choice between nesting and flight.

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• There are really not many jobs that actually acquire a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.

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• It's time to leave. There is so much out there to do and say and listen to. I can go on the road, because I can come home. I come home, because I am free to leave.

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