On July 10, 1971, at the founding of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) in Washington, D.C., NWPC co-founder Gloria Steinem delivered an Address to the Women of America. The speech furthered the ideas of the American Women's Movement, and is considered by some to be one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. Steinem refers to the idea of sex and race as being easy ways to organize people into inferior and superior beings due to the prominent characteristics and traits that are easy to point out. She also claims that the only roles in society seem to be for those who are chosen or for those who earned them. Not only did the speech address the issues of sexism and misogyny, but also those of racism and

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

. The speech is mostly remembered for the following quotation:

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution.
Sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...
and race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups, and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen, or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.

Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Affleck (' Lopez; born July 24, 1969), also known as J.Lo, is an American singer, actress and dancer. In 1991, she began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on the sketch comedy television series ''In Living Color'', where she rema ...

's 2016 music video for her song "

Ain't Your Mama "Ain't Your Mama" is a song recorded by American singer Jennifer Lopez. It was written by Meghan Trainor, Theron Thomas, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Gamal "Lunchmoney" Lewis, Henry "Cirkut" Walter and Dr. Luke, while production was handled by the la ...

", Steinem can be heard saying part of this speech, specifically, "This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution."

References

{{reflist History of women in the United States Women's rights in the United States 1971 speeches Second-wave feminism July 1971 events in the United States