Meryl Streep Quotes

The previous generation paved the way for my generation to gallop unheeded into jobs previously reserved for men.

Like men, women have to be diligent and work hard.

I don't think there is anything a man can do that a woman cannot do.

Women, whatever their profession, tend to have a harder time feeling ready for a job, even though in most cases they are more than prepared.

There is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.

I'm not just a female chef. I'm a woman in a brand new hotel, and that's why I think it's so perfect to be at the Cromwell, in a corner of one of the busiest intersections of the world, with my name in lights. It's different in all those sorts of ways, and I'm hoping I'll be able to carry that through. Because if I can't, it's a step back for women in general. People will say - men will say - "See, that's why it's mostly men".

I wish the women's rights folks would be more sensible. I think women have a great deal to learn, before they are fit to vote.

I think maybe it's too bad that our society isn't further along and this is such a big deal. I think it's time...that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do.

It is the woman who controls the whole house...it's her job, that's what she's supposed to do...We have to change this idea that women are not only supposed to work in the house...but she also has the ability to go outside and do business, to be a doctor, to be a teacher, to be an engineer, she should be allowed to have any job she likes. She should be treated equally, as men are.

Until the sky is the limit [for women], as it is for men, men as well as women will suffer, because all society is affected when half of it is denied equal opportunity for full development.

If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn't even think about discrimination.

There are still vestiges of societal limitations on women. I tend to think that has to do with opportunities that are available - it says a lot that it's still sometimes the best opportunity for a woman to be able to advance herself.

The bottom line is, the more we have a cadre of women moving up the scale, and it doesn't seem threatening, and people realize that women actually work much harder than men, and realize that they need more women in these jobs, I think that goes away.

The reason I wrote Lean In is I think people weren't actually noticing that we had stopped making progress. I gave a TED talk and said: "It turns out men still run the world." And the audience gasped as if that was news.

I realized that women are still not seen as equal to men. We had a big wave of feminism just before my generation was born. We're still sitting on this wave. There are very militant people and very aggressive women at the top of that wave but I think we have a new version of it now.

I think women are not interested in being like "the man" or having the same position as "the man." Women want to be women with equal rights. At this point now, we're very clear about that. I don't want to be the same as him. I want to be me with the same opportunity. So I think that's the difference of today than the fight that my mom had to fight, which was a little bit different and as complicated.

Women should have equal pay for equal work and they should be considered equally eligible to the offices of principal and superintendent, professor and president. So you must insist that qualifications, not sex, shall govern appointments and salaries.

I am convinced that this country is ready to have a woman in the White House, but I also think there's still a lot of hidden sexism.

A feminist is a man or woman who already knows for a fact that men and women are qual and wants society to wake up to that fact, so the world can stop operating at half-strength.

I've recommended girls for jobs that I had a different part in, and agents have been like, "No, don't ..."It's so surprising to me.

I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative: either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote.

Nobody defines it as something women shouldn't be doing. In a way, there are more mathematicians, more doctors, more scientists in India than there are in this country. We even had a woman head of state, and that's something the United States has yet to catch up with.

Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true... people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.

The females don't respect themselves; they only think materialistically. They want money, but they don't think, I'm gonna get this money on my own, they think, I'm gonna get money from this guy.

No woman's getting hired because of her potential. I hope that we can invest more in female potential.