Gloria Steinem in her own words on women's rights, abortion politics and being called the B-word

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Author and feminist icon Gloria Steinem was famously quotable, balancing blunt talk with a wit that could be cutting and disarmingly self-effacing.

In interviews and emails with Associated Press reporters over the decades, Steinem insisted that sexism “is not inevitable,” declared “there is no democracy” without abortion rights and concluded that the correct way to respond when called the B-word was to say: “Thank you.”

It's no surprise that Steinem titled a 2019 compilation of some of her most famous quotes: “The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!”

She also refused credit for things others said first. While the quip “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” has often been attributed to Steinem, she wrote to Time magazine in 2000 to point out that it originated with Australian writer and activist Irina Dunn.

Here are examples of Steinem, who died Wednesday at age 92, in her own words.

“Nobody ever called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist, and that was in my mid-30s. It was clear that label was being assigned to me. The most hurtful part is that you work very hard, and people say it’s because of your looks.” (August 2011)

“We know sexism is not inevitable. It’s only about controlling reproduction and therefore controlling women. If we have reproductive freedom, that is the ability to decide for ourselves when and whether to have children and what happens to our bodies, it can be reversed.” (May 2016)

“We live in a democracy that’s one of the few in the world that’s never had a female elected leader. That’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, we’re choosing from half the country’s talent” (March 2026)

“It’s obviously ridiculous to say somebody is ‘pro-abortion.’ Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I think I’ll have an abortion. It’s a pleasurable experience.’ The question is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government.” (May 2017)

“Obviously, without the right of women and men to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy.” (June 2022)

“Women have always taken power over our own bodies, and we will keep right on. An unjust court can’t stop abortion, but it guarantees civil disobedience and disrespect for the court.” (June 2022)

“It took me years to learn what to do when someone calls you a bitch. Just smile in a calm triumphant way, and say, ‘Thank you!’” (July 2020)

“I hadn’t changed — marriage had changed.” (August 2011)

“No, not for a millisecond.” (August 2011)

“When people were saying, ‘You’re all bra-burners and all that,’ we had to work very hard to be taken seriously. We were still having to prove that women were being discriminated against.” (August 1987)

“It’s the result of letting women tell the truth to each other and not pretending that we’re all white, skinny, beautiful, that we’re only interested in 101 different ways to cook hamburger, being superwoman or whatever.” (August 1987)

“You can’t do it on the phone or on the web. You have to be there with all five senses. It should be obvious that people can’t empathize with each other unless we’re in the same room.” (October 2015)

“I could not have made a bigger mistake. It was personally and professionally a disaster. In the short term it was much harder to get serious assignments, and in the long term it’s been used to ridicule me.”

“I want people to realize that if a very imperfect person did this, maybe they can, too!” (August 2011)

“Say that I have always worked for a living, my own living, that I buy my dresses off the rack. I have never been to Acapulco and I don’t go away for ski weekends.” (April 1970)

“In the wintertime, my father always put the whole family in a house trailer and we were working our way, buying and selling antiques and so on, to Florida or California. I think my family thought because I was always reading books in the back seat, that was enough.” (March 2026)

“I know I’m doing the right thing by writing, because it’s the only thing I do that doesn’t make me feel guilty.” (April 1970)

“If you’re a writer and you really care about writing, you put it off. You wax the floor.” (October 2015)