Women Quotes

The emergency of women is the emergency of the world.

~ Sina Queyras

And little girls went to charm schools. Now you've all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.

~ Ian Rankin

For my relationships with men to change, I needed to change my relationship to myself as a woman.

~ Gloria Ng

Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men--that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex.

~ Susan Fletcher

While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.

~ Sara Sheridan

I can promise you that women working together – linked, informed and educated – can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.

~ Isabel Allende

Valys also didn't think I was good enough for him. He made that clear every time he acted like a martyr forced to settle. But what he didn't understand was that if he thought I might not be good enough for him, he definitely wasn't good enough for me. I was well aware of my flaws, but I knew my merits, too; I shouldn't have to be anyone's second-best. Least of all, his.

~ Nenia Campbell

She longs for fresh air and common sense, and is not willing to be a dolt for the sake of being called a deity.

~ Kate Gordon

I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I'd have to say I'd like to live in the future - I want to see where these centuries of change are leading us.

~ Sara Sheridan

Looking at my life through the lens of history has made me increasingly grateful to standout women who pushed those boundaries to make the changes from which I have benefited.

~ Sara Sheridan

Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.''I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.''Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!''I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads … Not that I read everything, but …''I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women?

~ Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o

Progressive feminists have shown nothing but the most reflexive, regressive contempt for women on the other side of the ideological aisle. It doesn’t matter if you’re a conservative stay at home mom, work at home mom, or work outside the home mom. If you’re Right, the Left is gonna hate.

~ Michelle Malkin

I’m willing to be under anything, she said, as long as it isn’t somebody’s thumb.

~ Amor Towles

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.

~ Sara Sheridan

Almost every time I speak to teenagers, particularly young female students who want to talk to me about feminism, I find myself staggered by how much they have read, how creatively they think and how curiously bullshit-resistant they are. Because of the subjects I write about, I am often contacted by young people and I see it as a part of my job to reply to all of them - and doing so has confirmed a suspicions I’ve had for some time. I think that the generation about to hit adulthood is going to be rather brilliant.Young people getting older is not, in itself, a fascinating new cultural trend. Nonetheless the encroaching adulthood and the people who grew up in a world where expanding technological access collided with the collapse of the neoliberal economic consensus is worth paying attention to. Because these kids are smart, cynical and resilient, and I don’t mind saying that they scare me a little.

~ Laurie Penny

Because this woman sobbed in the way that all women sob, whether they do it outwardly or whether they keep it silently locked up inside themselves. They sob because they realise, one day, that they were born on a planet of men, and that short of death or spinsterhood they can never escape. Effie's Aunt Rachel used to say, 'Even the slaves could run away, but where can women go?

~ Graham Masterton

Even beyond the Middle East, the role of the independent women remains as warped as a Lewis Caroll novel. We may control $12 trillion of the world's $184 trillion in annual consumer spending (I read it in Newsweek), and yet our self-worth apparently ccomes in a shampoo bottle (because you're worth it).

~ Amy Mowafi

...I discovered I'm having a girl. And I hae spent a good portion of the last few weeks thinking about the kind f woman I'd like to see her become and the lessons I'd like to impart to her. Somewhere along the line, I decided it doesn't matter to me what type of woman she is, as much as what type of woman she is not. I never ever want her to become the type of woman who, suffocated by a screwed up society, fears herself, her desires, her ambitions, her impulses, her potential power.

~ Amy Mowafi

In early 1970, Newsweek's editors decided that the new women's liberation movement deserved a cover story. There was one problem, however: there were no women to write the piece.

~ Lynn Povich

Women often get dropped from memory, and then history.

~ Doris Lessing

Move thy tongue,For silence is a sign of discontent.

~ Elizabeth Cary

From her handbag she takes a round gilt compact with violets on the cover. She opens it, unclosing her other self, and runs her fingertip around the corners of her mouth, left one, right one; then she unswivels a pink stick and dots her cheeks and blends them, changing her shape, performing the only magic left to her.Rump on a packsack, harem cushion, pink on the cheeks and black discreetly around the eyes, as red as blood as black as ebony, a seamed and folded imitation of a magazine picture that is itself an imitation of a woman who is also an imitation, the original nowhere, hairless lobed angel in the same heaven where God is a circle, captive princess in someone's head. She is locked in, she isn't allowed to eat or shit or cry or give birth, nothing goes in, nothing comes out. She takes her clothes off or puts them on, paper doll wardrobe, she copulates under strobe lights with the man's torso while his brain watches from its glassed-in control cubicle at the other end of the room, her face twists into poses of exultation and total abandonment, that is all. She is not bored, she has no other interests.

~ Margaret Atwood

Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.

~ Emma Goldman

I think there’s a ton of fear in the perception of romance in part because there’s something very realistic in great romance — namely, that women have the right to demand relationships that are based on equality and honesty and trust and, yes, a great sex life.

~ Sarah Maclean

I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do.

~ Henry James

Inferiority is not banal or incidental even when it happens to women. It is not a petty affliction like bad skin orcircles under the eyes. It is not a superficial flaw in an otherwiseperfect picture. It is not a minor irritation, nor is it a trivialinconvenience, an occasional aggravation, or a regrettable but(frankly) harmless lapse in manners. It is not a “point of view”that some people with soft skins find “ offensive. ” It is the deepand destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding of dignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worthand human recognition, the forced alienation of a person fromeven the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity. Inferiorityputs rightful self-love beyond reach, a dream fragmented byinsult into a perpetually recurring nightmare; inferiority createsa person broken and humiliated inside. The fragments—scattered pieces and sharp slivers of someone who can neverbe made whole—are then taken to be the standard of what isnormal in her kind: women are like that. The insult that hurther—inferiority as an assault, ongoing since birth—is seen as aconsequence, not a cause, of her so-called nature, an inferior nature. In English, a graceful language, she is even called apiece. It is likely to be her personal experience that she is insufficientlyloved. Her subjectivity itself is second-class, her experiencesand perceptions inferior in the world as she is inferiorin the world. Her experience is recast into a psychologicallypejorative judgment: she is never loved enough because she isneedy, neurotic, the insufficiency of love she feels being in andof itself evidence of a deep-seated and natural dependency. Herpersonal experiences or perceptions are never credited as havinga hard core of reality to them. She is, however, never lovedenough. In truth; in point of fact; objectively: she is never lovedenough. As Konrad Lorenz wrote: “ I doubt if it is possible tofeel real affection for anybody who is in every respect one’s inferior.” 1 There are so many dirty names for her that one rarelylearns them all, even in one’s native language.

~ Andrea Dworkin

Women, porn assets, whether they know it or not, are objects They are whores. These whores deserve to be dominated and abused. And once men have had their way with them, these whores are to be discarded. Porn glorifies the cruelty and domination of sexual exploitation in the same way popular culture, as Jensen points out, glorifies the domination and cruelty of war. It is the same disease. It is the belief that “because I have the ability to use force and control to make others do as I please, I have the right to use this force and control.” It is the disease of corporate and imperial power. It extinguishes the sacred and the human to worship power, control, force, and pain. It replaces empathy, eros, and compassion with the illusion that we are gods. Porn is the glittering façade, like the casinos and resorts of Las Vegas, like the rest of the fantasy that is America, of a culture seduced by death.

~ Chris Hedges

Mother Atkinson thought that every one should have a trade, or something to make a living out of , for rich people may grow poor, you know, and poor people have to work.... so when I saw how happy and independent those young ladies were, I wanted to have a trade, and then it wouldn't matter about money, though I like to have it well enough.

~ Louisa May Alcott

But females in even the most advanced Muslim countries are simply, by law, not the equal of men.

~ Bill Maher

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better.Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing.Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever.Real women start their lives as baby girls. And as baby boys. And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions.Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them.Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides.Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not.Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to.Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced.Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real.There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla: There is no wrong way to have a body.I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body.And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap.You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis. All human beings are real.Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised. It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel. But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem. Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me

~ Hanne Blank

The game is a dominance game called I Must Impress This Woman. Failure makes the active player play harder. Wear a hunched back or a withered arm; you will then experience the invisibility of the passive player. I'm never impressed -- no woman ever is -- it's just a cue that you like me and I'm supposed to like that. If you really like me, maybe I can get you to stop. Stop; I want to talk to you! Stop; I want to see you! Stop; I'm dying and disappearing!SHE: Isn't it just a game?HE: Yes, of course.SHE: And if you play the game, it means you like me, doesn't it?HE: Of course.SHE: Then if it's just a game and you like me, you can stop playing. Please stop.HE: No.SHE: Then I won't play.HE: Bitch! You want to destroy me. I'll show you. (He plays harder)SHE: All right. I'm impressed.HE: You really are sweet and responsive after all. You've kept your femininity. You're not one of those hysterical feminist bitches who wants to be a man and have a penis. You're a woman.SHE: Yes. (She kills herself)

~ Joanna Russ

I know, I know, I'm being a girl.

~ Gillian Flynn

...I know how she must have felt. Pressure to be in charge of the world. So much responsibility. The whole world on her...to let go and just give herself to you, to give up to you... I'm glad you understand...few women do. Oh, they do. They're just afraid to admit it... in the dusty dark little corner of every woman's heart... lives the hunger to fetch a powerful man his slippers on her hands and knees.

~ Tiffany Reisz

[I]n America, wrongs can be righted,warriors can wear skirts and blouses,and the bravest heartsmay beat in girlsonly five feet tall.

~ Michelle Markel

What do you know about somebody not being good enough for somebody else? And since when did you care whether Corinthians stood up or fell down? You've been laughing at us all your life. Corinthians. Mama. Me. Using us, ordering us, and judging us: how we cook your food; how we keep your house. But now, all of a sudden, you have Corinthians' welfare at heart and break her up from a man you don't approve of. Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? I was breathing air in the world thirteen years before your lungs were even formed. Corinthians, twelve. . . . but now you know what's best for the very woman who wiped the dribble from your chin because you were too young to know how to spit. Our girlhood was spent like a found nickel on you. When you slept, we were quiet; when you were hungry, we cooked; when you wanted to play, we entertained you; and when you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you. You have yet to . . . move a fleck of your dirt from one place to another. And to this day, you have never asked one of us if we were tired, or sad, or wanted a cup of coffee. . . . Where do you get the RIGHT to decide our lives? . . . I'll tell you where. From that hog's gut that hangs down between your legs. . . . I didn't go to college because of him. Because I was afraid of what he might do to Mama. You think because you hit him once that we all believe you were protecting her. Taking her side. It's a lie. You were taking over, letting us know you had the right to tell her and all of us what to do. . . . I don't make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house.

~ Toni Morrison

The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy....Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.

~ Phyllis Schlafly

The feminist movement as we have come to know it in recent decades is fundamentally a con....As it is considered treasonous to criticise a sister feminist, no standards of accuracy or honesty are ever enforced. Hyperbole and deceit thus become the formula for success, peer review playing no role in reining in misinformation. Any would-be feminist who raises scholarly objections to the rampant misinformation is branded an 'enemy of women' and is drummed out of the movement.

~ Robert Sheaffer

The questions that we have to ask and to answer about that procession during this moment of transition are so important that they may well change the lives of men and women forever. For we have to ask ourselves, here and now, do we wish to join that procession, or don't we? On what terms shall we join that procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the procession of educated men?...Let us never cease from thinking--what is this civilisation in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them? Where in short is it leading us, the procession of the sons of educated men?

~ Virginia Woolf

Women get more unhappy the more they try to liberate themselves.

~ Brigitte Bardot

I'd learned that the same internal voice that told me I wasn't good enough had a habit of judging other women, too. They fed into each other, so it was best to quell such thoughts before they gathered strength.

~ Kjerstin Gruys