Gloria Steinem

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. She will need her sisterhood.

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

One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!

No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin—because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men.

Laughter is the only free emotion.

Surveys show that what women fear in men is violence, and what men fear in women is ridicule.

Because, let's face it, the vision of someone masturbating into a potted plant and making someone else watch is not the greatest pleasure of mutual human sexuality....

Now we know that, say, women can do what men can do—most folks would agree with that. But we don't know that men could do what women can do.

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

A woman who aspires to be something is called a bitch.

I think the person who said: 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament' was right.

I can't mate in captivity.

In fact, women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.

What has the women's movement learned from Geraldine Ferraro's candidacy for vice president? Never get married.

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

Some of us are becoming the men we want (wanted) to marry.

At my age, in this still hierarchical time, people often ask me if I'm 'passing the torch.' I explain that I'm keeping my torch, thank you very much-and I'm using it to light the torches of others.

I wouldn't want to generalize, but we still do live in a society that's sexist and racist and addicted to class and has the ridiculous idea that if you have money you're smarter, which Donald Trump by himself should be able to disprove.

If you say, I'm for equal pay, that's a reform. But if you say, I'm a feminist, that's a transformation of society.

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 that. It's about baking a new pie.