“Empathy is the most radical of human emotions”: Gloria Steinem’s life in quotes

Gloria Steinem’s words became part of the language of modern feminism, although one of the quotations most closely associated with her was not actually hers. “Women need men like fish need a bicycle” was written by Australian Irina Dunn, and Steinem regularly corrected people who credited it to her.

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I’d already been the very small parent of a very big child, my mother. I didn’t want to end up taking care of someone else.

There was no shortage of lines that did belong to Steinem. A leading figure in second-wave feminism, she used journalism and public advocacy to challenge the roles imposed on women. Her upbringing shaped that work. After her parents separated when she was 11, Steinem lived with and cared for her mother, who experienced a mental breakdown and depression. The experience influenced her belief that marriage could limit women’s choices and civil rights.

“I’d already been the very small parent of a very big child, my mother. I didn’t want to end up taking care of someone else,” she said. Steinem had no children and married at 66.

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The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

Her optimism also carried an element of confrontation. In a 1970 commencement speech at Vassar College, she argued that feminism, which she also described as humanism, required Americans to abandon entrenched patterns of elitism, racism and violence. “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn,” she said. “We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up.”

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We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up.

Steinem’s essay “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” strengthened her position as an intersectional feminist leader. Her journalism included “A Bunny’s Tale,” an exposé of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine. Later tributes reflected the scale of her influence. Hillary Clinton said Steinem “pushed open doors not just for herself, but for literally millions of women behind her,” while Nancy Pelosi called her “a fearless trailblazer who transformed the fight for equality in America and inspired generations of women to know their power.”

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Gloria Steinem pushed open doors not just for herself, but for literally millions of women behind her.