Kara

“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: "It is a subject on which nothing final can be known." The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations.

Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“If our generation has been told for decades that we have so much freedom, so many choices, such opportunities, the question women with young children face is: how free are we to reach for the stars in midlife if we have someone else depending on us? Especially when our concept of good parenting involves so much more brain space and such higher costs than it did for our mothers and grandmothers? And when we expect ourselves to be excellent, highly engaged parents while also being excellent, highly engaged employees?”
― Ada Calhoun, Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis

“Listening to other women's stories this year has given me confirmation, finally, that our expectations have been absurd. So many women I spoke with--objectively successful women--felt ashamed of their perceived failures.

What if we're not failures? What if what we've done is good? At any rate, maybe it's good enough.”
― Ada Calhoun, Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis