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.
We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
One of the outstanding tragedies of this age of struggle and money-madness is the fact that so few people are engaged in the effort which they like best. Everyone should find his or her particular niche in the world's work, where both material prosperity and happiness in abundance may be found.
I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children - especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese children burned by napalm destroyed me.
What a mistake those who do not hope make! Judas made a huge blunder the day in which he sold Christ for 30 denarii, but he made an even bigger one when he thought that his sin was too great to be forgiven. No sin is too big: any wretchedness, however great, can always be enclosed in infinite mercy.
I have no disciples, being myself an aspirant after discipleship and in search of a guru.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.