Gloria Steinem Quotes

I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being Black...men are men.

In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor.

Women are not equal with men, that's sure. When the woman is in danger she always looks to the man for help. We are superior by nature. The black or white woman needn't worry in life because the world is ruled by the white man.

The most damaging part of pervasive bias, whether it's implicit or complicit because sometimes it can be well-intentioned, is when that bias gets internalized and women start self-centering and stop thinking that they're incapable of achieving what they want and achieve empowerment.

The reality is that race in the United States operates on a spectrum from black to white. Doesn't mean that people who are in between don't experience racism, but it means that the closer you are to white on that spectrum, the better off you are. And the closer to black that you are on that spectrum, the worse off your are.

One reason that we have collectively plugged our ears against a decade of dismal revelations about Bill Cosby is that he made lots of Americans feel good about two things we rarely have reason to feel good about: race and gender.

Coming to new environments, people look at you and think, 'what's this blonde lady doing, she thinks she can drive a racing car.' But you work hard, keep your head down and show that you're actually capable.

Understand that you are going to have to address several things navigating through the world as it pertains to men who have been conditioned to think that they are superior, which I don't believe, in the natural world, that is the case.

Obviously, I don't want to minimize the patriarchal nature of our media, our government and our culture as a whole. But I think it's our refusal as women to own our power that is our biggest problem, both individually and collectively. The linchpin that holds the current system in place is the slumber of women.

On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.

I myself have perceived women's actions as more aggressive than I would have in men because I too am walking around with my own biases. The way to fight them is to become conscious of them.

It's okay in this country to be sexist. It's certainly not okay to be racist.

Feminism is to sexism what black nationalism is to racism; the most rational response to the problem.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

I believe that woman are superior to men.

The myth of black women profiting at the expense of black men is the oldest rap around.

Man's world' and 'woman's place' have confronted each other since Scylla first faced Charybdis. ... if women have only a place, clearly the rest of the world must belong to someone else and, therefore, in default of God, to men.

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there.

When we suggest that men are at the top because men discriminate, we miss the point. Men are at the top of the work hierarchy because work has been primarily men's responsibility.

Sexist grammar burns into the brains of little girls and young women a message that the male is the norm, the standard, the central figure beside which we are all deviants, the marginal, the dependent variables. It lays the foundation for androcentric thinking, and leaves men safe in their solipsistic tunnel-vision.

When I was growing up, no one ever said to me, "You cannot do math because you're a girl." But, there was an understanding growing up that math and science were for boys. Somebody lied to me because Katherine Johnson woman exists, all of these women existed.

Women being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the walls.

Women are not men's equals in anything except responsibility. We are not their inferiors, either, or even their superiors. We are quite simply different races.

Patriarchy is bestowed on men at birth. Whether you want it or not, you have a privilege as a man, and you either fight against it and reject it by becoming a feminist man, or you enjoy the privileges that come with it.

Women are dirt searchers; their greatest worth is irradicating rings on collars and tables. Never mind real-estate boards' corruption and racism, here's your soapsuds. Everything she is doing is peripheral, expendable, crucial, and non-negotiable. Cleanliness is next to godliness.