“As a pregnant urologist,… I was often asked by hospital workers and physicians if I was going to circumcise the baby. I always answered a simple “no” immediately, without adding the unnecessary caveat that I already knew I was carrying a girl. Knowing that in some parts of the world circumcising girls (female genital mutilation) is as common a practice as circumcising boys, I wanted to use this to spark rethinking every chance I had. When the questioner would find out I knew I was having a girl and tried to use that to explain my choice to not circumcise, I told them, “I wouldn’t circumcise if the child were a boy, either.”
― Reclaiming My Birth Rights
― Reclaiming My Birth Rights
“With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.”
― Seductress - Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love
― Seductress - Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love
“Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.”
― Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
― Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
(Keynote speech at Celebrating Inspiration luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, 2006)”
―
(Keynote speech at Celebrating Inspiration luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, 2006)”
―
“Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...”
― The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
― The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Gena’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Gena’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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