feminist soundbites

[MrIC]

shameless attempt to get you (highly intelligent and knowledgeable people) to do my job for me

I'm writing a lesson on feminism and want some short, pithy, diverse quotations on feminism/by feminists for my students to discuss and rank in order of personal resonance or importance. 1 or 2 sentences max really.

It's for a very high-level English-as-a-foreign language class.

have you got any favourite feminist quotations to suggest?

Can you give us an example? I think ranking quotations on feminism by importance is a bit weird btw.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people too.

ranking is just a handy technique to get them to engage though isn't it?

you need the Rebecca West doormat one and the line by Marian Keyes quoted on the Marian Keyes thread - will find you both when I have a mo.

thanks for the replies. here are some I've found:

Easy is an adjective used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man. ~Nancy Linn-Desmond

I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing. ~Gloria Steinem

The house wife is an unpaid employee in her husband's house in return for the security of being a permanent employee. ~ Germaine Greer

(so I kind of want the names of the authors too please)

The idea of ranking is to get them to discuss and debate them, using the target language I'm trying to teach them, as well as getting them to engage.

thanks for the input!

There's the famous one from Dr Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

That gives you a good lead-in to the use of the gerund in English.

Didn't he also say, "A man is in general better pleased to see a good dinner upon the table, than to hear his wife talk Greek"?

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women don't have what it takes." ~Clare Boothe Luce

here's my new favourite, Marian Keyes, (thanks Ullainga) "As long as you believe you're entitled to the same rights as everyone else (i.e men), you're a feminist. See, that's not so bad, is it? There's nothing to be scared of".

(just think it would be nice to have a chicklit author in with all the Great Minds)

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. ~Faith Whittlesey

Not nec 'feminist' but a brilliant quote.

Another Marian one: "...as you know, I don't believe in fear, it's just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs..."
? Marian Keyes (Anybody Out There?)

I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves. ~Mary Wollstonecraft

I love this one and think it still holds true: Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776. ~Susan B. Anthony

A man has every season while a woman only has the right to spring. ~Jane Fonda

Cor, there's loads. Have a look Here

It's almost 25 years since this was published:

Because women's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and...for lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement. ~Author unknown, quoted in The Torch, 14 September 1987

You can look up "Pankhurst quote" and "Fawcett quote" and find some good stuff.

This one by the fundamentalist Pat Robertson always makes me laugh:

Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson, bless him

Made me smile though!

sweet! thanks for those!

I shall report back.

we're also going to be using this article

One of my favourites to throw in the ring:
"If men could menstruate, abortion would be a sacrament" Gloria Steinem

OK, so here's how it went

I did the lesson (90 minutes) with two classes:

Class 1: 3 male university students from very privileged backgrounds and one woman, early 30s, just returned to work after two year absence to have her first child (her H is currently a SAHD). I normally have 2 other women in the group, but sadly they weren't there.

Class 2: 7 women, aged from 17 to early 50s, plus one man, mind-twenties.

Bearing in mind it was an English lesson, so the focus was on language, idioms and reading techniques and feminism just happened to be the topic, there were some very interesting things said.

Class 1: As expected the woman in class 1 had some very interesting things to say given her own situation and attitudes towards her in the workplace before and after her pregnancy. We're in Spain so luckily maternity provision is good and attitudes aren't far behind, but still it was quite eye-opening for the 3 guys, especially in the context of the Gloria Steinem quote:

"I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing."

One of the boy's father is a diplomat and he commented that it seemed to be easier for women to get a job in the public sector than a man, due to quotas: he elaborated that in the diplomatic service many relatively inexperienced women were being promoted over more experienced men. However, I think by the end of the lesson he'd revised his opinions somewhat and agreed that there was a gap between the policy in theory and in practice.

The boys were also very accepting of the continued need for feminism/feminists in modern society, which was an interesting contrast to....

Class 2: two of the girls immediately commented that they didn't like feminists/didn't see the point: we've already got equality, feminists hate men, feminists think women are better than men, etc. Luckily two of the other girls were quite knowledgeable and set them straight, pointing out that gay-rights campaigners don't think gay people are superior, so why assume that women's rights campaigners think women are superior? I wasn't aware of this, but there is a big debate in Spain about providing feminine versions of masculine nouns (e.g. "el jefe" - the boss - is masculine; if the boss is a woman, should it be "la jefa"?) which many of them thought frivolous and unimportant.

As the lesson progressed, however, they mostly got into it, and they especially liked the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire quote and:

We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters. ~Gloria Steinem

as we'd been talking the other day about how few Spanish men could cook!

I think by the end they had all agreed that feminism was still both relevant and necessary though, apart from the two who were already quite interested in it, I can't see any of them adopting a more feminist outlook as a result. Just to perhaps be more open and sympathetic to texts/people labeled "feminist" in the future.

thanks again for all the suggestions. I'm now planning a follow up on fairy tales using those parody clips somebody posted!