gabrielle

“[…] it’s not enough to argue that because the ‘wrong’ kind of people end up in prison we should rethink it. We must rethink the prison system and work to abolish it because feminism demands the abolition of systems and structures that make it impossible for us to live collectively. Prison obscures the causes of social ills; it sweeps violence under the rug and affirms the idea that it is inevitable. In a society that produces ‘criminals’, we all bear responsibility for transforming the structures that make this label possible.”
― Lola Olufemi, Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

“In summary, even if you give Brexiteers the benefit of the doubt, concede that their historical wistfulness is more about nostalgia for the nineteenth-century free-trading prowess rather than nostalgia about empire per se, you ignore the fact that free trade at that time was actually imperial. You also ignore that some of the deadliest calamities in Britain's history of empire, some leaving millions dead, happened in the name of free trade.”
― Sathnam Sanghera, Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain

“Feelings erode in here. Memories wear off. All that’s left are facts without the emotion that once accompanied them. I don’t cry in this place. There isn’t room enough for the heart to move. There are no winds to rustle it. Silence here is not the absence of sound, but the presence of a dense, unshakable stillness. Like dark matter in space, silence here is a living force that slides into all corners and seams. I have come to depend on it.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Against the Loveless World

“The femme fatale seems to have it all - she is independent and enjoys sexual fulfillment, but this comes at a price: rejected by society, she is the focus of male aggression and is ultimately always destroyed. As such she is a cautionary tale warning women not to want too much.”
― Catherine McCormack, Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies