dawn > dawn's Quotes

“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
― Gloria Steinem

“I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.”
― Maya Angelou

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
― Adrienne Rich

“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”
― bell hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

“The emerging woman ... will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied...strength and beauty must go together.”
― Louisa May Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl

“No longer will we (women) agree to protect the hearth at the price of extinguishing the fire within ourselves.”
― Celia Gilbert

“There is always a place where, if you listen closely in the night, you will hear a mother telling a story and at the end of the tale, she will ask you this question: 'Ou libéré?' Are you free, my daughter?"

My grandmother quickly pressed her fingers over my lips.

Now," she said, "you will know how to answer.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“A society without the authentic and vibrant influence of women is a society that is not fully alive. A culture lacking the vital creativity of women is disadvantaged. Without the bearing of women on world affairs, humanity's already tenuous grip on peace is made even less sure. When women are barred, whether by law, cultural prejudice, or political ideology, from developing their full potential and offering their unique gifts, it is an injustice to women themselves and to humanity as a whole.”
― Stephen Catanzarite, Achtung Baby

“My sexuality is not an inferior trait that needs to be chaperoned by emotionalism or morality.”
― Alice Bag

“Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world
acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.”
― Pat Califia

“The significance of feminist movement (when it is not co-opted by opportunistic, reactionary forces) is that it offers a new ideological meeting ground for the sexes, a space for criticism, struggle, and transformation.”
― bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

“Now we really like to put people in boxes. As men, we do it because we don't understand characters that aren't ourselves and we aren't willing to put ourselves in the skin of those characters and women, I think, terrify us. We tend not to write women as human beings. It's cartoons we're making now. And that's a shame.”
― Paul Haggis

“Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth