|
Women's
Rights
|
|
*
Women
will not simply be mainstreamed into the polluted
stream. Women are changing the stream, making it clean
and green and safe for all -- every gender, race,
creed, sexual orientation, age, and ability.
-- Bella
Abzug
The
test for whether or not you can hold a job should
not be the arrangement of your chromosomes.
-- --
Bella
Abzug
|
|
|
*
If
particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies,
we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will
not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have
no voice or representation.
-- Abigail
Adams
“If
we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers,
we should have learned women.”
-- Abigail
Adams
|
*
The
connection between women's human rights, gender
equality, socioeconomic development and peace is
increasingly apparent.
--
Mahnaz Afkhami
Women's
empowerment is intertwined with respect for human
rights.
--
Mahnaz Afkhami
|
|
|
Even
though they make up half the population, women and
girls have endured discrimination in most societies
for thousands of years. In the past, women were treated
as property of their husbands or fathers - they couldn't
own land, they couldn't vote or go to school, and
were subject to beatings and abuse and could do nothing
about it. Over the last hundred years, much progress
has been made to gain equal rights for women around
the world, but many still live without the rights
to which all people are entitled.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
|
 |
|
|
"You
ask whether a woman should be paid the same wages
as man when she does the same work? To this, there
can be but one answer. If she does the same quantity
and quality of work under the same conditions as a
man, simple justice requires that she should be paid
the same. wages. To deny her this is to deny her justice."
-- John
Peter Altgeld
|
*
We were idealists. We thought that when we got the
vote the whole pattern of politics would be greatly
improved and would be dominated by women.
-- Jessie
Daniel Ames
While
women's suffrage has not brought about the political
millennium which its fondest backers predicted,
its effects on the whole have been decidely beneficial.
-- Jessie
Daniel Ames
|
|
Equal
pay for women is a matter of simple justice.
-- Mary
Anderson
|
|
 |
*
“How
important it is to recognize and celebrate our heroes
and she-roes.”
-- Maya
Angelou
|
|
|
"…gender
equality is critical to the development and peace
of every nation."
-- Kofi
Annan
"…there
is no tool for development more effective than the
empowerment of women."
-- Kofi
Annan
"women
themselves have the right to live in dignity, in freedom
from want and freedom from fear. On this International
Women's Day, let us rededicate ourselves to making
that a reality.
-- Kofi
Annan
When
women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding
generations are given a better start in life.
-- Kofi
Annan
|
*
"The
day will come when men will recognize woman as his
peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils
of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there
be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between
the sexes that shall result in the highest development
of the race."
-- Susan
B. Anthony
*
"Cautious, careful people always casting about to
preserve their reputation or social standards never
can bring about reform.
|
|
"Cautious,
careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation
or social standards never can bring about reform. Those
who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or
nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately,
in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas
and their advocates, and bear the consequences."
-- Susan
B. Anthony
"Independence
is happiness." -- Susan
B. Anthony
"There
never will be complete equality until women themselves help
to make laws and elect lawmakers." -- Susan
B. Anthony
"I declare
to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of
man, but must be taught to protect herself and there I take
my stand." -- Susan
B. Anthony
 |
*
Instead
of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women
should try and give their best qualities to men - bring
them softness, teach them how to cry.
--Joan
Baez
|
|
|
*
"This
is your life!!! The children/husbands/lovers are just
one chapter. The stronger we (women) get the more
loving we can be- to all."
-- Cynthia
Basinet
|
"The
dogma of woman's complete historical subjection to men must
be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created
by the human mind."
-- Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958),
"For
what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by
virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women."
-- Elizabeth Blackwell (The first woman in the U.S. to become
a physician)
"If
society will not admit of woman's free development, then
society must be remodeled."
-- Elizabeth Blackwell
|
|
*
It
will not do to say that it is out of woman's sphere
to assist in making laws, for if that were so, then
it should be also out of her sphere to submit to them.
-- Amelia
Bloomer
|
*
“We
are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the
female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured,
mutilated, and murdered in the name of commercial
entertainment and free speech”
-- Susan
Brownmiller
|
|
 |
*
“We
are asking people to understand that slavery still
exists today; in fact, according to a recent New York
Times article, if you count the number of women and
children in bonded labor, domestic slavery or sexual
slavery today, there are more slaves in the world
than at any other time in history.”
-- Charlotte
Bunch
*
“Feminism
is a transformational force, an individual and social
force. It is a way of looking at the world–a questioning
of power/domination issues, an affirmation of women’s
energy.”
--
Charlotte
Bunch
|
*
Sexual, racial, gender violence and other forms of discrimination
and violence in a culture cannot be eliminated without changing
culture.
-- Charlotte
Bunch
“We
have to start looking at the world through women’s eyes’
how are human rights, peace and development defined from
the perspective of the lives of women? It’s also important
to look at the world from the perspective of the lives of
diverse women, because there is not single women’s view,
any more than there is a single men’s view.”
--
Charlotte
Bunch
Feminism
is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list
of women's issues.
--
Charlotte
Bunch
“The
state of the world today demands that women become less
modest and dream/plan/act/risk on a larger scale.”
-- Charlotte
Bunch
Women
have a lot to say about how to advance women's rights, and
governments need to learn from that, listen to the movement
and respond.”
--
Charlotte
Bunch
*
Everybody
counts in applying democracy. And there will never
be a true democracy until every responsible and
law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race,
sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable
and unpurchasable voice in government.
-- Carrie
Chapman Catt
|
|
Remember
our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our
capacities by seeing that other women have been strong.
-- Judy Chicago
"Educate
a man and you educate an individual. Educate a woman and
you educate a family."
-- A.Cripps
"We
ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil
and political rights that belong to citizens of the United
States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."
-- Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
 |
My
idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very
open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself,
and do whatever she needs to do.
-- Ani
DiFranco
*
I
have something to prove, as long as I know there's
something that needs improvement, and you know that
everytime I move, I make a woman's movement.
-- Ani
DiFranco
|
*
The
young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write,
to choose their occupation, should remember that every
inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great
price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping
onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading
the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt
that each generation owes to the past it must pay to
the future.
-- Abigail
Duniway |
 |
When
women's true history shall have been written, her part in
the upbuilding of this nation will astound the world.
-- Abigail
Duniway
|
*
We
need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate
into the institutions that men have created over the
centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.
-- Barbara
Ehrenreich
What
we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions.
Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating
into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman
to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly
insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military
or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself.
We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate
into the institutions that men have created over the
centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.
-- Barbara
Ehrenreich
|
 |
 |
*
"...gender relationships, which are tough for
people to deal with, are key to whether a society
orients to domination or partnership in all its relations."
-- Riane
Eisler
"For
most of recorded history, parental violence against
children and men's violence against wives was explicitly
or implicitly condoned. Those who had the power to
prevent and/or punish this violence through religion,
law, or custom, openly or tacitly approved it. …..The
reason violence against women and children is finally
out in the open is that activists have brought it
to global attention."
-- Riane
Eisler
|
"We've
chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around."
-- Geraldine Ferraro (The first woman to be nominated as
Vice President of the United States)
|
*
"Adult
women, all of us, have to come to grips with how we
have been affected by gender norms, and how we have
been silenced. We have to help our daughters. Understanding
it within ourselves and helping our young girls stand
up for themselves is one way."
--
Jane
Fonda
*
"If
you can intervene early in the lives of girls here
and in other parts of the world, you can begin to
change the prospects for the future."
--
Jane
Fonda
|
 |
 facebook.com/wearewoman.us
But
the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure
your life. Act by yourself.
-- Jane
Fonda
The
extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all
social progress.
-- Charles Fourier
Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The
real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.
-- Betty
Friedan
*
The
only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself,
to know herself as a person, is by creative work
of her own. There is no other way.
-- Betty
Friedan
|
|
A girl
should not expect special privileges because of her sex
but neither should she adjust to prejudice and discrimination.
-- Betty
Friedan
 |
*
"If
you have knowledge, let others light their candles in
it."
-- Margaret
Fuller |
|
...
being a feminist means that you believe in civil rights
and social justice.
-- Janeane
Garofalo
|
|
|
*
"Women's
rights are an essential part of the overall human
rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability
to live in freedom all people should enjoy."
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
Every
constitution written since the end of World War II
includes a provision that men and women are citizens
of equal stature. Ours does not.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
*
Women will only have true equality when men share
with them the responsibility of bringing up the next
generation.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
|
 |
My mother
told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own
person, be independent.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
It
is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
“The
state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy
and full equality.”
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
The
emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the
right to privacy and reproductive control.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
I do
think that being the second [female Supreme Court Justice]
is wonderful, because it is a sign that being a woman in
a place of importance is no longer extraordinary.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
*
"Male
and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of
the law, must be equally admitted to all honors,
positions, and public employment according to their
capacity and without other distinctions besides
those of their virtues and talents."
-- Olympe
de Gouges
|
|
*
“It
is truly a privilege to be able to support all women's
causes on a global level. It is remarkable that something
as simple as television can empower us to create change
and awareness in the world. I am blessed to be able
to work at a job I love and also give back in the most
vital way--to people in need.”
-- Teri
Hatcher |
|
|
|
*
“I've
always been a big believer in equality. No one has
ever been able to tell me I couldn't do something
because I was a girl.”
-- Anne
Hathaway
|
*
"When
I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by
women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of
their capacity for the most herculean undertakings.
-- Julia
Ward Howe |
|
 |
*
"Full
democracy requires the full participation of women.
Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary
for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include
all its citizens."
-- Swanee
Hunt
|
|
|
women
are the victims of war... as widows they've faced
the trauma of being single parents and livelihoods
of families are affected. A lot of gender-related
problems come up in terms of health, education, domestic
violence, etc.
-- Kumari
Jayawardena
*
Today
women in many countries are taking part in various
types of movements of protest, some of which are serious
struggles for economic and social emancipation .
-- Kumari
Jayawardena
|
|
|
*
"Across
the world women are joining hands in solidarity and
support, in a global women’s movement, sharing knowledge
and experience and empowering themselves to build
a peaceful and fairer world."
-- Marilee
Karl
|
|
|
*
Every
day we hear about the dangers of cancer, heart disease
and AIDS. But how many of us realize that, in much
of the world, the act of giving life to a child is
still the biggest killer of women of child-bearing
age?
-- Liya
Kebede
*
The
message of our campaign is "Make every mother and
child count". This campaign is not just about health.
It is also a powerful call for radical progress in
women's rights and the rights of their children. Too
often, the health of mothers and children does not
count. In too many parts of the world, they are forgotten.
-- Liya
Kebede
|
*
I
think it's important for me as an actor that I say
these are the issues I'm going to be committed to.
One of them for me is women and children's health
around the world and their rights;the other is ovarian
cancer.
-- Nicole
Kidman
*
As
a Goodwill Ambassador for UNIFEM, I’ve learned that
violence against women knows no boundaries. Join
me in helping women worldwide who have suffered
unthinkable violence.
-- Nicole
Kidman
*
Violence
against women is an appalling human rights violation.
But it is not inevitable. We can put a stop to this.
-- Nicole
Kidman
|
|
“One
in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her
lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet
it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics
of our time.”
-- Nicole
Kidman
I’m
especially interested in helping to give visibility to the
pandemic of violence against women
-- Nicole
Kidman
|
|
“I
know we can't abolish prejudice through laws, but
we can set up guidelines for our actions by legislation.”
-- Belva
Ann Lockwood
*
“I
do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law,
politics, or trade - or that modesty and virtue are
more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had
more of it everywhere.”
-- Belva
Ann Lockwood
|
|
*
“Prior
to my election, young Cherokee girls would never have
thought that they might grow up and become chief.”
-- Wilma
Mankiller
|
|
 |
*
Because
of their agelong training in human relations-for that
is what feminine intuition really is-women have a
special contribution to make to any group enterprise.
-- Margaret
Mead
It
has been a woman's task throughout history to go on
believing in life when there was almost no hope.
-- Margaret
Mead
Every
time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.
-- Margaret
Mead
|
*
The
world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous
nation, because in the degradation of women, the
very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.
-- Lucretia
Mott
|
|
History
looks different when the contributions of women are included.
~ National Women's History Project
|
*
In
less than a century we experienced great movement.
The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil
rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity
movement! The women's movement! The disability movement!
The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement!
The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation!
Is there any reason to believe we are done?
-- Holly
Near
|
 |
*
We
have to free half of the human race, the women, so that
they can help to free the other half
--Emmeline
Pankhurst |
|
...the
Government must not think that they can stop this agitation.
It will go on...We are here not because we are law-breakers;
we are here in out efforts to become law-makers.
--Emmeline
Pankhurst
What
is the use of fighting for a vote if we have not got a country
to vote in?
--Emmeline
Pankhurst
|
|
*
I
never doubted that equal rights was the right direction.
Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to
me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.
-- Alice
Paul
I
always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic...Each
of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a
great mosaic at the end.
-- Alice
Paul
There
will never be a new world order until women are a
part of it.
-- Alice
Paul
|
"What
exactly is success? For me it is to be found not in applause,
but in the satisfaction of feeling that one is realizing
one’s ideal."
-- Anna Pavlova (1881-1931)
*
“The
only way to solve the problem of women’s subordination
is to change people’s mindset and to plant the new idea
of gender equality into every mind.”
-- Qingrong
Ma |
|
*
"If
the world was taking care of women, women would take
care of the world."
-- Jane
Roberts, Co-Founder, 34 Million Friends of UNPF
|
|
 |
There is no reason against woman's elevation, but
prejudices.
-- Ernestine
Rose
For
here lies the corner stone of all the injustices done
woman, the wrong idea from which all other wrongs
proceed. She is not acknowledged as mistress of herself.
For her cradle to her grave she is another's. We do
indeed need and demand the other rights of which I
have spoken, but let us first obtain OURSELVES."
--
Ernestine
Rose
|
 |
*
But
remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence,
it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most
dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually
victimize women. And a political struggle that does
not have women at the heart of it, above it, below
it, and within it is no struggle at all.
-- Arundhati
Roy
*
...a
political struggle that does not have women at the
heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is
no struggle at all.
-- Arundhati
Roy
|
 |
*
Ordinary
people like you and me have the chance to make a tremendous
difference for mothers and their children worldwide
-- Meg
Ryan
|
 |
*
"It
will be great when it's not such a big deal when a
woman gets a good job."
-- Susan
Sarandon
|
 |
"In
my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which
puts millions of our people back to work. We must
end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise
the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to
fight for pay equity for women."
~ Sen.
Bernie Sanders
|
|
"I
was told Indian women don't think like that about
equality. But I would like to argue that if they don't
think like that they should be given a real opportunity
to think like that."
-- Amartya
Sen
|
 |
|
|
*
Women’s
voices help balance out the male energy. Until we do
that, we are not going to have peace in the world.
-- Barbara
Simmons |
"The
women of this country ought be enlightened in regard
to the laws under which they live, that they may
no longer publish their degradation by declaring
themselves satisfied with their present position,
nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have
all the rights they want."
--
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I
would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives
but as nouns.
--
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
*
We
hold these truths to be self evident: that all men
and women are created equal.
--
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
|
|
 |
*
This
is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex
and race because they are easy and visible differences
have been the primary ways of organizing human beings
into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap
labour in which this system still depends. We are
talking about a society in which there will be no
roles other than those chosen or those earned. We
are really talking about humanism.
-- Gloria
Steinem
|
However
sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism
must start with a belief in some group's greater right to
power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class,
religion, or all four. However far it may expand, the progression
inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within
the family.
-- Gloria
Steinem
*
“I
think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young
women of today do not and can never know at what
price their right to free speech and to speak at
all in public has been earned.”
--
Lucy Stone
|
|
|
|
*
I
am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so
terrible these days? The liberals were liberators—they
fought slavery, fought for women to have the right
to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to
end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals
put an end to child labor and they gave us the five
day work week! What's to be ashamed of?"
-- Barbra
Streisand
|
|
One of the things about equality is not just that
you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat
yourself equally to the way you treat a man.
--
Marlo
Thomas
|
|
*
"If
the first woman God ever made was strong enough to
turn the world upside down all alone, these women
together ought to be able to turn it back and get
it right side up again."
-- Sojourner
Truth (c. 17971883)
|
 |
|
|
*
"I
am dedicated to ensuring reproductive health and freedom
for all."
-- Kathleen
Turner
"I
am dedicated to ensuring reproductive health and freedom
for all. Please join me in supporting Planned Parenthood's
vital work to protect access to reproductive health
care and real sex education worldwide."
-- Kathleen
Turner
This
is not about abortion or the antics. This is about
pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention
in a woman's personal decisions about her life.
-- Kathleen
Turner
|
|
*
“We
women have the same capacity and potential for power
to allow us to be participants in our own destiny.”
~ Rafaela
vos Obeso
|
 |
“We
women have presented an alternative proposal to society
and to humanity. It is about the construction of a world
where tolerance is a life style; Where daily social and
political divergences and its resolutions would be seen
as part of humanity; Where equality would be possible in
all its dimensions; Where knowledge and access to education
and other social possessions would not be the privilege
of a few; A world where violence in all its forms would
be past history, where fear will not overwhelm us and where
we shall be able to enjoy the goodness of existence.”
~ Rafaela
vos Obeso
|
*
The task of organizing human happiness needs the active
cooperation of man and woman. It cannot be relegated
to one half of the world.
-- Lillian
Wald
|
|
*
"You
cannot have peace without human rights, democracy,
gender equality, and clean water. Look to the root
causes of war and you will find, in their reverse,
the root foundations of peace."
-- Cora
Weiss
|
 |
"I
have never been able to find out precisely what feminism
is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever
I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat"
-- Rebecca West, 1913
 |
*
I
do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over
themselves.
-- Mary
Wollstonecraft
Let
not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments
that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used,
and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected
because she has always been so.... It is time to effect
a revolution in female manners -- time to restore
to them their lost dignity.... It is time to separate
unchangeable morals from local manners.
-- Mary
Wollstonecraft
|
Taught
from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes
itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only
seeks to adorn its prison.
-- Mary
Wollstonecraft
Strengthen
the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end
to blind obedience.
-- Mary
Wollstonecraft
|
*
The
uses of government should be to foster, protect and
promote the possession of equality.
-- Victoria
Woodhull
I ask the rights to pursue happiness by having a voice
in that government to which I am accountable.
-- Victoria
Woodhull
|
 |
 |
The
failure of women to have reached positions of leadership
has been due in large part to social and professional
discrimination.
-- Rosalyn
Yalow
|
Women's
Rights Quotes
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