Gill

“Good people are not racist, only bad people are. This neat binary is a great way of avoiding any real discussion at all. But without the structural violence of unequal treatment before the law and in education, and a history of racial exploitation by states, simple acts of personal prejudice would have significantly less meaning.”
― Akala, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

“In Britain, Prime Minister William Gladstone (1809–98) opposed suffrage because to involve women in politics would be, he said, ‘to trespass upon the delicacy, the purity, the refinement, the elevation of their nature’.”
― Jack Holland, A Brief History of Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice

“He knows he is only being asked to be respectful, and he knows people just want to turn up to work and do their job and not be reminded every five minutes of what they look like. Douglas knows they are right and he is wrong. He doesn't miss the good old days, he misses his good old days. He doesn't suppose they were good for most people.

But to really admit that to himself would be to admit to a lifetime of wearing his comfortable blinkers.”
― Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice

“The disposable girl should develop a drink problem or take drugs. She should become the victim of someone else, somewhere else. At best she becomes a campaigner against whatever she was a victim of. Nothing can happen to her that doesn't refer back to the attack. She has been branded.

But that's not true because the world is full of us. One in five. We are as perennial as love. We go about our business, raising kids, running countries, starting wars and solving crimes. We don't tell our stories because, if we've survived, that can only mean that what happened wasn't so very bad after all. It never means that we are fucking amazing.

I am fucking amazing.

When I was nineteen I ran so fast I left a branding behind. And I have stories to tell that are more than titillating details or pleas for your pity.

This is just one of them.”
― Denise Mina, Conviction