Gloria Steinem

For decades, Gloria Steinem has led a social revolution against injustice. In Revolution from Within -- called "the ultimate self-help book" by the Los Angeles Times -- she sets out to restore the self-authority that such injustice has undermined. "A fine triumph...Succeeds in holding the feminist course while expanding its horizons to include everyone." --Time "Revolution from Within has a special sweetness -- that of triumph. Gloria Steinem dared to look behind the bravely smiling face she presented to the world for many years to encounter a not-so-bravely-smiling inner self. This meeting will strike sparks of recognition and encouragement." --Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

A Book of Self-Esteem

Revolution from Within

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I was inspired to read this after completing "Memoirs of an Ex Prom Queen".

"That’s difficult enough when we have been misvalued by an upbringing or social bias that is clearly wrong. But what happens when this wrongness is taught as objective truth? When the most respected sources of information make some groups invisible and others invincible? When we are encouraged to choose between “bettering” ourselves and becoming ourselves?"

"getting a man to fall in love with me. As many women can testify, this is alarmingly easy, providing you’re willing to play down who you are and play up who he wants you to be."

"Clearly, romance can arrive with all its obsession whenever we’re feeling incomplete, at any age or station of life—and as I can testify, even when we know better. We hurt both ourselves and other people when we become who they want us to be instead of who we really are."

"Nonetheless, the prospect of getting unhooked from this obsession sometimes creates as much anxiety as giving up any addiction: Where will that “rush” of excitement come from? Who will we become?"

"As Robin Morgan sums up in The Anatomy of Freedom, “Hate generalizes, love specifies.” And romance generalizes, too. When we look for a missing part of ourselves in other people, we blot out their uniqueness. Since most of us have been deprived along gender lines, we generalize about the “opposite sex” (or about any group that becomes “the mysterious other”), thus rendering it a blank screen on which we project our hopes (in romance) or our fears (in hate). No wonder romance turns so easily to hate, and vice versa."

"To be locked in an intimacy one can’t leave, for whatever reason, is to eventually feel resentment;"

"There are many ways of meeting your future self. Imagining a figure ahead of you on life’s path is one way. You might also think about a desired future event and imagine your future self within it. Or imagine a protecting future self who advises you in hard times, celebrates in good ones, and is always there for you to ask: What would my guide say?"

"The remarkable thing is that contemplating this best self will bring out those qualities in you and enable you to do seemingly impossible feats."

Revolution from Within A Book of Self-Esteem

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