Nabiila > Recent Status Updates

“…Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man, who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself…”

“It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.”

“The power you had to call it gives it power over you: you are connected.” // “It is the shadow of your arrogance, the shadow of your ignorance, the shadow you cast.”

“You have great power inborn in you, and you used that power wrongly … And you were moved to do this by pride and by hate. Is it any wonder the result was ruin?”

“Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most—you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”

“…I sink into your eyes whenever I’m looking at you, and I feel your eyes on me whenever I’m walking around the room and all the time I am aware, with a pride I can no longer contain, that I am living for you, that I am allowed to do so…” cihuy

“…don’t get sick, Milena, don’t get sick. It’s fine if you don’t write; but it shouldn’t be because you’re sick.” Omg stop dehhh

“Ged joined his voice to the praises, but not his heart. ‘I could have done better,’ he said to himself, in bitter envy; and all the joy of the evening was darkened for him, after that.” // “But for the most part he was all work and pride and temper, and held himself apart.”

I’m just like Ged. I feel like by the end of it I’m gonna feel SO called out by this children’s book

“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”

“He … raged at his weakness, for he knew his strength. There was power in him, if he knew how to use it …”

“Indeed, recognizing all the ways that males have been victimized by patriarchy (even though they received rewards) was a way of including men in feminist movement, welcoming their presence and honoring their contribution.”

“I did not want to hear the pain of my male partner because hearing it required that I surrender my investment in the patriarchal ideal of the male as protector of the wounded. If he was wounded, then how could he protect me?”

“When feminist women insist that all men are powerful oppressors who victimize from the location of power, they obscure the reality that many victimize from the location of victimization. The violence they do to others is usually a mirroring of the violence enacted upon and within the self.”

That is such a good point & a perspective I never considered before

“Many men in our society have no status, no privilege; they receive no freely given compensation, no perks with capitalist patriarchy. For these men domination of women and children may be the only opportunity to assert to assert a patriarchal presence.”

Feminist Manhood is my favorite chapter. So many insights on patriarchal masculinity vs feminist masculinity

“Ultimately, one of the emotional costs of allegiance to patriarchy is to be seen as unworthy of trust. If women and girls in patriarchal culture are taught to see every male, including the males with whom we are intimate, as potential rapists and murderers, then we cannot offer them our trust, and without trust there is no love.”

“Patriarchal masculinity teaches males to be pathologically dependent for self-definition on the privileges (however relative) that they receive from having been born male.” // “Rather than defining strength as ‘power over’, feminist masculinity defines strength as one’s capacity to be responsible for self and others.”

“When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.”

“Teachers of children see gender equality mostly in terms of ensuring that girls get to have the same privileges and rights as boys within the existing social structure; they do not see it in terms of granting boys the same rights as girls…”

“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves.”

“This rage is needed if boys are to become men willing to travel around the world to fight wars without ever demanding that other ways of solving conflict can be found.”

“Patriarchy both creates the rage in boys and then contains it for later use, making it a resource to exploit later on as boys become men. As a national product, this rage can be garnered to further imperialism, hatred, and oppression of women and men globally.”