Gloria Steinem Quotes

We're really taught to be followers from a very young age - men lead and women follow.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture, so it's important to acknowledge that. Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are.

As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do.

To think that all in me of which my father would have felt proper pride had I been a man, is deeply mortifying to him because I am a woman.

They [men and women] have both been, and men especially, have been told that how they naturally are is bad.

I wanted to know why people follow rules blindly, or why girls had to act a certain way and boys didn't. Why could boys ask girls out and girls not ask guys out? Why did girls have to shave their legs and guys didn't? Why did society, like, set everything up the way they did? My whole adolescence was full of unanswered whys. Because they never got answered, I just kept lighting fires everywhere - metaphorically speaking.

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.

I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose.

Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are.

As long as male behavior is taken to be the norm, there can be no serious questioning of male traits and behavior. A norm is by definition a standard for judging; it is not itself subject to judgment.

Black men don't like to be called 'boys,' but women accept being called 'girls.'

No one knows what women want!

In our cultural history, all emotions have been more culturally acceptable to women.

People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.

Tradition has made women cowardly.

It's easy for women to say they don't understand and ask a man for help. As the saying goes, boys play with toys, and girls play with boys.

What I do know is that traditional gender roles are very real and flipping the norm is difficult for even the strongest, funniest, smartest men.

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.

There is a sense that women are more anchored than men in our society.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

Women have to stand up to tremendous discriminatory practices, whether inherited traditions, whether imposed norms, male perceptions of power and control. The women always have to go through that and cannot take any privilege for granted.

Clearly, we are not programmed at birth to behave a certain way based on our gender. Instead, we are trained throughout our lives to conform to our gender norms.

Our discomfort with female leadership runs deep. We call little girls bossy. We never really call little boys bossy, because a boy is expected to lead, so it doesn't surprise or offend.

Men never get free from morality, only women.