Gloria Steinem

I’ve come into loving and understanding the feminine side of me. How powerful a woman and her femininity is… how strong, how graceful, how gorgeous, how beautiful. I love getting to know the many sides of myself. I embrace them all.

Being a strong woman is very important to me. But doing it all on my own is not.

If we don’t teach our young girls to speak at an early age, that doesn’t just happen.

I feel there are certain people who are systematically ripping (feminism) down because of their lack of regard and their ignorance about what the women before us had to go through.

Have you watched Snow White lately? I get real funky about the classics; I don’t like (my sons) watching it. It’s totally sexist, misogynistic – she’s cleaning for seven dwarfs. There’s nothing wrong with a woman who chooses to stay at home with her family, it’s a hard-ass job, but it’s the way it’s spoken about.

I have tremendous respect for women.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

A strong woman looks a challenge in the eye and gives it a wink.

So early in our lives we are shushed. And not just directly shushed but sometimes in our lives we’re treated too preciously. We may have a father that loves us and treats us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings and equal partners.

Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that’s inside of you.

If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is women.

And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

To all my goddesses in the world spreading love and light, power and radiance. Never stop being brilliant!!

My first instinct is great pride for all of us as women who are finding our voices.

I just love bossy women. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It mans somebody’s passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn’t mind leading.