I have me brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.
Gloria SteinemRead
If you hear a statistic, you will make up a story to go with it, because our brains are organized on narrative. And you may very well make up a wrong story because you only have one fact, which is a statistic.
Interpretation
Our understanding of statistics can be clouded by our natural inclination to create narratives, often leading to misconceptions.
Gloria Steinem's quote highlights the human tendency to construct stories around isolated facts, like statistics, in order to make sense of them. This process is based on our brain's organization around narratives, but it also exposes us to the risk of creating incorrect interpretations when we draw conclusions from limited information.
In practice
In a speech discussing the importance of data literacy, this quote can remind the audience to critically analyze statistics.
I have me brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.
If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.
All those chemicals that create empathy only work when you are in a room together.
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women - from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace.
The happy man is he who knows his limitations, yet bows to no false gods.
I am a patient listener, but opinionated to the point of stubbornness when my mind is made up.
Your value should not be determined by how somebody else has treated you.
When at last I came upon the right book, the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it.
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.
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