Riya

“All those feminists who had hoped that women’s liberation could be brought about by putting pressure on the state and thus getting more social welfare for women, or by demanding equal opportunities for women in the job market, particularly in the higher ranks of this market, or by increasing women’s participation in political and other decision-making bodies, find their expectations shattered. They have to realize today that the fundamental democratic rights, the claim to equality and freedom, are also fair-weather rights, as far as women are concerned, and that these rights, in spite of the rhetoric of their universality, are suspended when the accumulation needs of capital require this.”
― Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour

“Feeling confronted with the absurdity of life may sometimes nurture a personal satisfaction for those who like to set a paramount task or to create a compassionate mission. In so doing, the seal of absurdity becomes less unbearable, while it confers them a ‘Sisyphus’ status that transmutes them into heroes of human resilience. (“Sisyphus on the hill.)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“By focusing on the male violence against women, coming to the surface in rape, and by trying to make this a public issue, feminists have unwittingly touched one of the taboos of civilised society, namely that this is a ‘peaceful society’. … The very fact that rape has now become a public issue had helped to tear the veil from the facade of so-called civilised society and has laid bare its hidden, brutal, violent foundations.”
― Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour

“Maleness and femaleness are not biological givens, but rather the results of a long historical process. In each historic epoch maleness and femaleness are differently defined. The definition depends on the principle mode of production in these epochs.”
― Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour