I love these quotes!
"The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.' "
~Shirley Chisholm
"All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are sides, and it is necessary for one side to beat another side."
~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, 1929
"In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore -- or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you don't fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you. But, she thought, there is nothing wrong with me."
-- the thoughts of Jenny Fields, a character in John Irving's "The World According to Garp"
What a great idea for a thread, and what throught-provoking and lucid quotes here already. The first one that came to my mind, was this very inspirational and emotional poem about invincibility and pride, by Maya Angelou. I don't know, perhaps it speaks first and foremost to African American women... but, it certainly also seems to speak to me.
Still I rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
This one made me smile:
Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don't are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word.
Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady.
What you have probably found is a Lesbian.
~ Fran Lebowitz
You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad;
you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else;
only you're unexplained as yet -- you've not got your niche in creation.
~ Radclyffe Hall in The Well of Loneliness, 1928
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
~ Maya Angelou
When you wake up in the morning - brush your teeth, comb your hair, wear a clean shirt, polish your shoes - and face the world.
Even if you think you are nobody.
~My mom
"My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine."
--Tallulah Bankhead
"Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister.”
-Alice Walker
I really like this one. Thanks for posting it.
:-*