Gloria Steinem Quotes

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.

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.

When gender comes down upon us, male or female, it comes as a restriction.

There is more difference within the sexes than between them.

Girls can wear jeans, cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, 'cause it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading.

I think human beings have a really broad spectrum of traits, and I almost feel implicated when we say, 'Men are like this, women are like this.' Nobody was telling me, 'Don't get dirty, don't play in the mud, girls don't do that.'

We determine whether a book is for boys or girls long before the reader gets a chance to decide: we package them with soldiers and ballet slippers on their covers, war machines and glittering gowns.

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

Men are every bit as gendered as women.

No, feminism isn't 'over.' We need it not only to challenge injustice but because the whole gender expectations thing is bad for men, too.

Growing up, I was not told that there were women's areas of preoccupation or male ones.

Men and women are different: we have different tendencies, skills, and behaviors. This should be accepted and fostered, not demonized. Because the end result is simply more effeminate men and more masculine women. Who wants that?

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

My parents never told me, 'You're supposed to wear pink,' or 'You're meant to do this because you're a girl.'

One of the main problems of our time is that men are deprived of their human qualities that are wrongly called feminine, and women are deprived of their human qualities that are wrongly called masculine.

I think the differences between men and women, it's kind of hard to define what those are and the challenges, what they are. I think there are challenging things for everybody.

I didn't want to be the girl in the group that couldn't do as much as the boys. I'm very competitive like that.

The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.

I don't want to play sex roles any more. I'm tired of being known as the girl with the shape.

Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys.

Especially with girls, people always want to put them in little brackets.

Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.

As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.

'Man up' is a sexist term that should be retired along with all the other gender-based imperious imperatives.

'Men don't cry!' 'Women can't handle money!' What limiting ideas to live with.