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Feminist quotes thread

127 replies

ArabellaScott · 23/04/2021 16:45

For a bit of pep on a Friday afternoon, thought I'd gather some stirring quotes.

"I know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion" - Emmeline Pankhurst

OP posts:
ReversedFerret · 25/04/2021 07:46

“Most women cannot afford, either materially or psychologically, to recognize that whatever burnt offerings of obedience they bring to beg protection will not appease the angry little gods around them.” - Andrea Dworkin

NorthernIrishFeminist · 24/04/2021 21:51

@Maduixa

With you on both of your comments, NorthernIrishFeminist. But I hope that reason prevails and women will not have to lose everything in order to start getting justice and equality back.
Agreed Maduixa

Seeing the Bernadette Devlin quote again gave me real pause for thought

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 21:49

"The insistence that man made women be accepted as women is the institutional expression of the mistaken conviction that women are defective males."

Germaine Greer

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 21:47

"Sex change surgery is profoundly conservative in that it reinforces sharply contrasting gender roles by shaping individuals to fit them."

Germaine Greer
The whole woman

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 21:45

"No man can have the history of being born and located in this culture as a woman. He can have the history of wishing to be a woman and acting like a woman, but this gender experience is that of the transexual, not of a woman. Surgery may confer the artifacts of outward and inward female organs but it cannot confer the history of being born a woman in this society."

Janice Raymond

MenopausalCrone · 24/04/2021 21:44

There is No gate

No lock
No bolt
That you can set
upon the freedom
of my mind

Virginia Woolf. A room of one's own

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 21:42

"Women's lack of choosiness about who may be called a woman strengthens the impression that women do not see their sex as quite real, and suggests that perhaps they too identify themselves as the not-male."

Germaine Greer
The Whole Woman

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 21:38

"When the transexual forces his way into the few private spaces women may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with threats and hate mail, he does as rapists have always done."

Germaine Greer
The Whole Woman

nickymanchester · 24/04/2021 21:32

Sorry, I just checked and I got it totally wrong.

The quote from Anne Lamott is correct, but the first person to use it was (I believe, although I could still be wrong) another American author by the name of Megan LeBoutillier who published a book entitled "No Is A Complete Sentence: Learning the Sacredness of Boundaries" back in 1995.

It's a self-help book that is still available on Amazon and other places:-

www.amazon.co.uk/No-Complete-Sentence-Megan-LeBoutillier/dp/0345376471?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

nickymanchester · 24/04/2021 21:18

The origin of the phrase "No is a complete sentence" that we hear from time to time on MN is actually from Anne Lamott in her 2004 book, "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith"

“I have become more successful in my forties, but that pales in comparison with the other gifts of my current decade how kind to myself I have become, what a wonderful, tender wife I am to myself, what a loving companion. I prepare myself tubs of hot salt water at the end of the day, and soak my tired feet. I run interference for myself when I am working, like the wife of a great artist would 'No, I'm sorry, she can't come. She's working hard these days, and needs a lot of down time.' I live by the truth that 'No' is a complete sentence. I rest as a spiritual act.”

Ereshkigalangcleg · 24/04/2021 21:18

Excellent quote, ofwarren

ofwarren · 24/04/2021 20:54

“I will not call a male ‘she’; thirty-two years of suffering in this androcentric society and of surviving, have earned me the title ‘woman’; one walk down the street by a male transvestite, five minutes of his being hassled (which he may enjoy), and then he dares, he dares to think he understands our pain? No, in our mothers’ names and in our own, we must not call him sister.”

Robin Morgan
The West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference 1973

Maduixa · 24/04/2021 20:43

With you on both of your comments, NorthernIrishFeminist. But I hope that reason prevails and women will not have to lose everything in order to start getting justice and equality back.

NorthernIrishFeminist · 24/04/2021 20:26

To gain what is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else

Bernadette Devlin

NorthernIrishFeminist · 24/04/2021 20:24

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the same

Iris Murdoch

Thelnebriati · 24/04/2021 19:45

"On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden."
Marcia Sirota

Thelnebriati · 24/04/2021 19:43

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
Maya Angelou

Original poster
ArabellaScott · 24/04/2021 13:15

'Women live lives of continual apology. They are born and raised to take the blame for other people's behavior. If they are treated without respect, they tell themselves that they have failed to earn respect.'

Germaine Greer

OP posts:
Ereshkigalangcleg · 24/04/2021 13:07

The first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on women.

Nancy Astor

highame · 24/04/2021 13:04

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”
― Cheris Kramarae

Original poster
ArabellaScott · 24/04/2021 12:12

'Your body is a battleground' - Barbara Kruger

Feminist quotes thread
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Original poster
ArabellaScott · 24/04/2021 12:10

'Abuse of power comes as no suprise' - Jenny Holzer

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Original poster
ArabellaScott · 24/04/2021 12:10

'I am woman, hear me roar' - Helen Reddy

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Original poster
ArabellaScott · 24/04/2021 12:08

"Women Hold up Half the Sky"

finding this attributed variously to Mao, Confucious or 'ancient Chinese proverb'.

OP posts:
Newbee9 · 24/04/2021 07:46

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." -Rosa Parks