Gloria Steinem Quotes

Gender is a shackle.

The majority of the film industry is, like, obsessed with a ridiculous gender binary and keeping with this stupid social binary. Like, who cares?

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.

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.

You don't realize it until you go out and take a look, but there are so many ways in which sexism is just allowed in our culture, not just in the entertainment industry. It's just allowed to be there, and that's not acceptable anymore. And I think it's really important to be very vocal.

There's still a narrower band of acceptable behavior for women than men.

People put stock in someone being in a 'girl group,' but we don't say that a band is a 'man group.'

In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl.'

I don't think that women being seen as inferior is a prejudice based on male hatred of women. When you look at history, it's a prejudice based on simple fact.

I grew up in a time when many people believed that men and women should not always be treated equally.

Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.

Over the years, the most ponderous problem for women has been that men think that men and women are very different. Another of our massive problems is that women also think that men and women are very different.

Feminism isn't about hating men. It's about challenging the absurd gender distinctions that boys and girls learn from childhood and carry into their adult lives.

Feminism is an attack on social practices and habits of thought that keep women and men boxed into gender roles that are harmful.

Land belongs to the men folk.

The oppression of women is based on custom and tradition—not religion.

Misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. Sexism wears a lab coat, misogyny goes on witch hunts.... Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.

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.

It's okay for a guy to be a baddie, but a woman? No, we can't deal with that.

If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, it's seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive. Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation: either you're not talking as you should as a woman or as boss.

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

Often, our laws and policies reflect patriarchal biases that can trap men in stereotypes - for example, the idea of guarding the modesty of a woman serves neither men nor women nor any other gender - instead, it comes from the same strong patriarchal framework that we need to confront and reject.

In our steady insistence on proclaiming sex-distinction we have grown to consider most human attributes as masculine attributes, for the simple reason that they were allowed to men and forbidden to women.

In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.

The notion that somehow women are wildly different infuriates me.