"I want us to organize, to tell the personal stories that
create empathy which is the most revolutionary emotion. The truth of the mater is that hierarchy and violence
can't be remedied by more hierarchy and violence. The end doesn't
justify the means, the means we choose decide the end we get. The means
are the end."
- Gloria Steinem
Empathy is the most radical of human emotions. - 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
Jane Fonda Another "Radical"
"What I learned is, we have to listen to each
other, even when we don’t agree, even when we think we hate each
other. We have to listen to each others narratives. Not interrupt
defensively, or with hostility, but really try to open our hearts
and listen with empathy.
I learned so much from that meeting. It was a very
difficult thing to do and it was one of the best things that I
ever did in my life. Look what scares you in the face, and try to
understand it. Empathy, I have learned, is revolutionary.“
Jane Fonda
(Full
video)
(Quote
video)