Gloria Steinem

“Empathy allows us to identify with other people's situations and other people to identify with ours. So I don't think that this human species could have survived without empathy.”

- Gloria Steinem

“Talking Circles seem to be part of all ancient cultures, as far as I know. They clearly are a form that is human and universal. It's an open field for empathy. First of all, it's a circle. It's not a hierarchy. Secondly, it's democratic, everybody gets to speak and everybody listens….

Because as each person speaks, you're learning from and empathizing with another person. After all, we don't learn from sameness, we learn from difference. So by sharing that experience or understanding that experience, we can communicate better. Regular experience of circles, talking circles, empathy, the ability to express oneself, is fundamental to our humanity, our development, our health. They are not just the basis of personal and communal expression, but the beginning of democracy. I mean, that is where democracy is based.”

- Gloria Steinem

“I think there is a hunger for talking circles. So some people have them around their kitchen table. Some people have them in a workplace. Some people have family reunions as one of their talking circles. In my own life, I've experienced it especially between and among women.”

- Gloria Steinem

“It is probably certainly more helpful to democratize a culture, for people with more power, to be able to empathize with people with less power. The liberation movements based on race, sexuality, nation, are trying to deal in a practical way with divisions.

That can take all kinds of forms, but I would say the most radical going to the root form is to empathize with the person in the other country, in the other gender, in the expressing themselves sexually in a different way. In the other class, up or down, whatever it is.“

- Gloria Steinem

“Empathy is what allows movements to work together, move together, listen to each other's stories, understand the coalition's we need, the shared purposes we have. It allows us to communicate, to bond, to feel okay in opposing. It is such a democratizing force. And it is such a force for understanding that what we are feeling is as important as what someone else is feeling, not more, not less, but at least equally important. And that if we act together we can change for everyone.”

- Gloria Steinem