a man needs god like a fish needs a bicycle . . .

the source for the image below . . .

“a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” is a feminist slogan, humorously expressing the view that a woman can live her life perfectly well without a man.

this slogan has often been attributed to either flo kennedy or gloria steinem but was in fact coined by irina dunn in 1970 . . .

“a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” is often attributed to the american feminist and political activist gloria steinem, or to the american feminist & political activist flo (florynce) kennedy, or to an anonymous author who painted the slogan on a wall at the university of wisconsin in 1969 (who we might also assume would have been an american feminist & political activist).

gloria steinem had this to say in a letter she wrote to time magazine in autumn 2000:“in your note on my new and happy marital partnership with david bale, you credit me with the witticism ‘a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.’ in fact, irina dunn, a distinguished australian educator, journalist & politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the university of sydney. she paraphrased the philosopher who said, ‘man needs god like fish needs a bicycle.’ dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular & durable spoof of the old idea that women need men more than vice versa.”

irina dunn later confirmed steinem’s version of events, in january 2002:

“yes, indeed, i am the one gloria referred to. i was paraphrasing from a phrase i read in a philosophical text i was reading for my honours year in english literature & language in 1970. it was ‘a man needs god like a fish needs a bicycle’. my inspiration arose from being involved in the renascent women’s movement at the time, and from being a bit of a smart-arse. i scribbled the phrase on the backs of two toilet doors, would you believe, one at sydney university where i was a student, and the other at soren’s wine bar at woolloomooloo, a seedy suburb in south sydney. the doors, i have to add, were already favoured graffiti sites.”

dunn’s modesty is appropriate, as ‘01 needs a 02 like a 03 needs a 04’ was a well-established format in the usa many years before 1970; for example, this usage in the connecticut newspaper the hartford courant, december, 1898:

the place (aragon, spain) didn’t need an american consul any more than a cow needs a bicycle; for it had no trade with america, and no american tourist ever dreamed of stopping there.

the source for the image above . . .