Nancy Rundle

“Before I began research for this book I was not consciously aware that women were aggressive in indirect ways, that they gossiped and ostracized each other incessantly, and did not acknowledge their own envious and competitive feelings. I now understand that, in order to survive as a woman, among women, one must speak carefully, cautiously, neutrally, indirectly; one must pay careful attention to what more socially powerful women have to say before one speaks; one must learn how to flatter, manipulate, aree with, and appease them. And, if one is hurt or offended by another woman, one does not say so outright; one expresses it indirectly, by turning others against her.
Of course, I refuse to learn these "girlish" lessons.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman

“I watch him start to undress me. The ground moves my feet, but it’s my knees that are shaking. The temperature in the room goes up a few degrees. My breathing quickens.
I watch his fingers pick at my tank top. Nicholas slides one hand underneath. He runs his fingers over my torso, presses them against my stomach. They move up and down with each one of my breaths.”
― Charlotte Byrd, Tell Me to Stop

“I just want you to know me.”
― Charlotte Byrd, Tell Me to Stop

“For most women, being seen, having others pay attention to you, is imagined and experienced as more desirable and more powerful than commanding an army or seizing control of the means of production and reproduction.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman