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3459977 I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives. stereotypes men equality feminism women-s-rights self-determination independence women reason empowerment strength rationality social-norms flattery misogyny hypocrisy double-standards gender Jane Austen
78f9e34 I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience. men equality women-s-rights self-determination independence women freedom reason empowerment superiority submission experience gender Charlotte Brontë
b12d50f Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it. equality feminism humanism humor inspirational common-sense men-and-women George Carlin
c47e01c Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now. equality feminism truth inspirational freedom-of-choice fairness Joss Whedon
6c767ff A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen. men equality feminism poetry women writing empowerment dignity judgment misogyny hypocrisy double-standards respect gender Virginia Woolf
4f5d4ab To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman? men equality women feminist empowerment strength inspirational gandhi gender Mahatma Gandhi
0d200f4 Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought. equality women inspirational race Kathryn Stockett
4a3abf0 If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things. men equality women work empowerment instruction jobs skills gender Plato
8f4c56e Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
b78ded5 Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red. equality reading horror Clive Barker
e112d2b We are all equal in the fact that we are all different. We are all the same in the fact that we will never be the same. We are united by the reality that all colours and all cultures are distinct & individual. We are harmonious in the reality that we are all held to this earth by the same gravity. We don't share blood, but we share the air that keeps us alive. I will not blind myself and say that my black brother is not different from me. I will not blind myself and say that my brown sister is not different from me. But my black brother is he as much as I am me. But my brown sister is she as much as I am me. sisterhood equality unity color individuality humanism human humanity inspiration inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living life inspirational brotherhood differences difference society race harmony respect C. JoyBell C.
2d4de95 I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been. men equality women superiority gender William Golding
2cc9836 "If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?". - (Act III, scene I)." equality William Shakespeare
2c6057e "Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity initiated by beauty thinking. A woman who is self-conscious can't relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is "done up" she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by "beauty"--a box continually shrinking--he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem Naomi Wolf
32ce2ff Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men's eyes when deciding what provokes it. rape equality feminism beauty harassment sexual-harassment body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography law society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
adb17ef "Men are visually aroused by women's bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women's personalities because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training. This asymmetry in sexual education maintains men's power in the myth: They look at women's bodies, evaluate, move on; their own bodies are not looked at, evaluated, and taken or passed over. But there is no "rock called gender" responsible for that; it can change so that real mutuality--an equal gaze, equal vulnerability, equal desire--brings heterosexual men and women together." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
c97fcae "What becomes of a man who acquires a beautiful woman, with her "beauty" his sole target? He sabotages himself. He has gained no friend, no ally, no mutual trust: She knows quite well why she has been chosen. He has succeeded in buying something: the esteem of other men who find such an acquisition impressive." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem Naomi Wolf
5b24af7 A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn't grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights. It's true what they say about women: Women insatiable. We greedy. Our appetites do need to be controlled if things are to stay in place. If the world were ours too, if we believed we could get away with it, we ask for more love, more sex, more money, more commitment to children, more food, more care. These sexual, emotional, and physical demands begin to extend to social demands: payment for care of the elderly, parental leave, childcare, etc. The force of female desire would be so great that society would truly have to reckon with what women want, in bed and in the world. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics self-love images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
06ff23f In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans. equality politics humor inspirational country diversity Theodore Roosevelt
b07e739 The downfall of the attempts of governments and leaders to unite mankind is found in this- in the wrong message that we should see everyone as the same. This is the root of the failure of harmony. Because the truth is, we should not all see everyone as the same! We are not the same! We are made of different colours and we have different cultures. We are all different! But the key to this door is to look at these differences, respect these differences, learn from and about these differences, and grow in and with these differences. We are all different. We are not the same. But that's beautiful. And that's okay.In the quest for unity and peace, we cannot blind ourselves and expect to be all the same. Because in this, we all have an underlying belief that everyone should be the same as us at some point. We are not on a journey to become the same or to be the same. But we are on a journey to see that in all of our differences, that is what makes us beautiful as a human race, and if we are ever to grow, we ought to learn and always learn some more. equality unity color humanism human humanity inspiration inspirational-quotes inspirational differences difference society culture race government harmony peace C. JoyBell C.
42483df Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl equality feminism inspirational gender-roles Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
c2cdfc0 The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
b380f52 "Whatever is deeply, essentially female--the life in a woman's expression, the feel of her flesh, the shape of her breasts, the transformations after childbirth of her skin--is being reclassified as ugly, and ugliness as disease. These qualities are about an intensification of female power, which explains why they are being recast as a diminution of power. At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition-- women will only feel healthy if we are two thirds of the women we could be. How can an "ideal" be about women if it is defined as how much of a female sexual characteristic exist on the woman's body, and how much of a female life show on her face?" equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
319c5c6 "Women could probably be trained quite easily to see men first as sexual things. If girls never experienced sexual violence; if a girl's only window on male sexuality were a stream of easily available, well-lit, cheap images of boys slightly older than herself, in their late teens, smiling encouragingly and revealing cuddly erect penises the color of roses or mocha, she might well look at, masturbate to, and, as an adult, "need" beauty pornography based on the bodies of men. And if those initiating penises were represented to the girl as pneumatically erectible, swerving neither left nor right, tasting of cinnamon or forest berries, innocent of random hairs, and ever ready; if they were presented alongside their measurements, length, and circumference to the quarter inch; if they seemed to be available to her with no troublesome personality attached; if her sweet pleasure seemed to be the only reason for them to exist--then a real young man would probably approach the young woman's bed with, to say the least, a failing heart." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
b9cb5e7 "The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her "beauty." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
157aeaa "Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve." -- socialism equality inquisition stalin Kurt Vonnegut
cbc093d Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone's different needs. socialism equality social-justice marxism Terry Eagleton
155cc2e "A man is unlikely to be brought within earshot of women as they judge men's appearance, height, muscle tone, sexual technique, penis size, personal grooming, or taste in clothes--all of which we do. The fact is that women are able to view men just as men view women, as objects for sexual and aesthetic evaluation; we too are effortlessly able to choose the male "ideal" from a lineup and if we could have male beauty as well as everything else, most of us would not say no. But so what? Given all that, women make the choice, by and large, to take men as human beings first." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
65017e1 Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal. Teach her not to attach value to difference. And the reason for this is not to be fair or to be nice but merely to be human and practical. Because difference is the reality of our world. And by teaching her about difference, you are equipping her to survive in a diverse world. She must know and understand that people walk different paths in the world and that as long as those paths do no harm to others, they are valid paths that she must respect. Teach her that we do not know - we cannot know - everything about life. Both religion and science have spaces for the things we do not know, and it is enough to make peace with that. Teach her never to universalise her own standards or experiences. Teach her that her standards are for her alone, and not for other people. This is the only necessary form of humility: the realisation that difference is normal. equality feminism inspirational Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
d6b8f43 LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. marriage men equality self-determination independence freedom empowerment happiness matrimony husbands singles William Shakespeare
6f37aec "Their [girls] sexual energy, their evaluation of adolescent boys and other girls goes thwarted, deflected back upon the girls, unspoken, and their searching hungry gazed returned to their own bodies. The questions, Whom do I desire? Why? What will I do about it? are turned around: Would I desire myself? Why?...Why ? What can I do about it? The books and films they see survey from the young boy's point of view his first touch of a girl's thighs, his first glimpse of her breasts. The girls sit listening, absorbing, their familiar breasts estranged as if they were not part of their bodies, their thighs crossed self-consciously, learning how to leave their bodies and watch them from the outside. Since their bodies are seen from the point of view of strangeness and desire, it is no wonder that what should be familiar, felt to be whole, become estranged and divided into parts. What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired. Girls learn to watch their sex along with the boys; that takes up the space that should be devoted to finding out about what they are wanting, and reading and writing about it, seeking it and getting it. Sex is held hostage by beauty and its ransom terms are engraved in girls' minds early and deeply with instruments more beautiful that those which advertisers or pornographers know how to use: literature, poetry, painting, and film. This outside-in perspective on their own sexuality leads to the confusion that is at the heart of the myth. Women come to confuse sexual looking with being looked at sexually ("Clairol...it's the look you want"); many confuse sexually feeling with being sexually felt ("Gillete razors...the way a woman wants to feel"); many confuse desiring with being desirable. "My first sexual memory," a woman tells me, "was when I first shaved my legs, and when I ran my hand down the smooth skin I felt how it would feel to someone else's hand." Women say that when they lost weight they "feel sexier" but the nerve endings in the clitoris and nipples don't multiply with weight loss. Women tell me they're jealous of the men who get so much pleasure out of the female body that they imagine being inside the male body that is inside their own so that they can vicariously experience desire. Could it be then that women's famous slowness of arousal to men's, complex fantasy life, the lack of pleasure many experience in intercourse, is related to this cultural negation of sexual imagery that affirms the female point of view, the culture prohibition against seeing men's bodies as instruments of pleasure? Could it be related to the taboo against representing intercourse as an opportunity for a straight woman actively to pursue, grasp, savor, and consume the male body for her satisfaction, as much as she is pursued, grasped, savored, and consumed for his?" equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem Naomi Wolf
4ac3445 We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need not believe we must somehow earn good erotic care; we always deserved it. Femaleness and its sexuality are beautiful. Women have long secretly suspected as much. In that sexuality, women are physically beautiful already; superb; breathtaking. Many, many men see this way too. A man who wants to define himself as a real lover of women admires what shows of her past on a woman's face, before she ever saw him, and the adventures and stresses that her body has undergone, the scars of trauma, the changes of childbirth, her distinguishing characteristics, the light is her expression. The number of men who already see in this way is far greater than the arbiters of mass culture would lead us to believe, since the story they need to tell ends with the opposite moral. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
dc6c4b5 Cosmetic surgery processes the bodies of woman-made women, who make up the vast majority of its patient pool, into man-made women. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
35cea24 Here's what we're not taught [about the Declaration and Constitution]: Those words at the time they were written were blazingly, electrifyingly subversive. If you understand them truly now, they still are. You are not taught - and it is a disgrace that you aren't - that these men and women were radicals for liberty; that they had a vision of equality that was a slap in the face of what the rest of their world understood to be the unchanging, God-given order of nations; and that they were willing to die to make that desperate vision into a reality for people like us, whom they would never live to see. equality independence subversive usa liberty democracy Naomi Wolf
acc3482 Why should her lover, just because he is male, be in a position to judge her against other women? Why must she need to know her position and hate needing to, and hate knowing? Why should his reply have such exaggerated power? And it does. He does not know that what he says will affect the way she feels when they next make love. She is angry for a number of good reasons that may have nothing to do with this particular man's intentions. The exchange reminds her that, in spite of a whole fabric of carefully woven equalities, they are not equal in this way that is so crucial that its snagged thread unravels the rest. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem Naomi Wolf
2c8b53a What are other women really thinking, feeling, experiencing, when they slip away from the gaze and culture of men? equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
bacb7f4 If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance (...); as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as points out [in his ], she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. stereotypes woman equality fiction truth clichés greatness dignity importance hypocrisy respect gender Virginia Woolf
aef238b "Our society reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty "fixes" that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time. A thin young woman with precancerous lungs [who smokes to stay thin] is more highly rewarded socially that a hearty old crone. Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden [an intrinsically unattainable standard of beauty used to punish women for their failure to achieve and conform to it]and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
13e3019 We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions, religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion, and suspicion work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings. The choice is yours. (22) interdependence hatred equality choice religion exclusion inclusion suspicion tradition Karen Armstrong
88856fd Men who read it [beauty pornography] don't do so because they want who look like that. The attraction of what they are holding is that it is a woman, but a two-dimensional woman-shaped blank. The appeal of the material is not the fantasy that the model will come to life; it is precisely that she will not, ever. Her coming to life would ruin the vision. It is not about life. Ideal beauty is ideal because it does not exist; The action lies in the gap between desire and gratification. Women are not perfect beauties without distance. That space, in a consumer culture, is a lucrative one. The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage, its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion. equality feminism beauty consumer body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem Naomi Wolf
63bdec2 For the first time in history, children are growing up whose earliest sexual imprinting derives not from a living human being, or fantasies of their own; since the 1960s pornographic upsurge, the sexuality of children has begun to be shaped in response to cues that are no longer human. Nothing comparable has ever happened in the history of our species; it dislodges Freud. Today's children and young men and women have sexual identities that spiral around paper and celluloid phantoms: from to music videos to the blank females torsos in women's magazines, features obscured and eyes extinguished, they are being imprinted with a sexuality that is mass-produced, deliberately dehumanizing and inhuman. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
22bf9f4 Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal (...). There is a tendency (...) for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious-because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. equality meritocracy Harper Lee
571884f HIGGINS. The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another. equality manners George Bernard Shaw
450bfe8 What editors are obliged to appear to say that want from women is actually what their want from women. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing conformity pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
845cbfd "The beauty myth sets it up this way: A high rating as an art object is the most valuable tribute a woman can exact from her lover. If he appreciates her face and body because it is hers, that is next to worthless. It is very neat: The myth contrives to make women offend men by scrutinizing honest appreciation when they give it; it can make men offend women merely by giving them honest appreciation. It can manage to contaminate the sentence "You're beautiful," which is next to "I love you" in expressing a bond of regard between a woman and a man. A man cannot tell a woman that he loves to look at her without risking making her unhappy. If he never tells her, she is to be unhappy. And the "luckiest" woman of all, told she is loved because she's "beautiful," is often tormented because she lacks the security of being desired because she looks like who she lovably is." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
82454b8 At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? human-rights india equality women reality truth inspirational environmental-degradation false-gods narmada-valley dam government-corruption corporations nationalism economics government capitalism exploitation Arundhati Roy
2428b8f "No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne." "I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling. "And ask in what sense that young man is worthy of ?" integrity marriage men equality feminism self-determination independence women self-awareness empowerment suitability worthiness marriage-proposal matrimony dignity social-norms inferiority gender courtship wooing Charlotte Brontë
00ecebb All men are born free: just not for long. equality education-system John le Carré
c61f258 Health makes good propaganda. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards health propaganda magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
0fc82a2 Equality lies only in human moral dignity. ... Let there be brothers first, then there will be brotherhood, and only then will there be a fair sharing of goods among brothers. equality sharing dignity Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5129dbc "Cosmetic surgery is not "cosmetic," and human flesh is not "plastic." Even the names trivialize what it is. It's not like ironing wrinkles in fabric, or tuning up a car, or altering outmoded clothes, the current metaphors. Trivialization and infantilization pervade the surgeons' language when they speak to women: "a nip," a "tummy tuck."...Surgery changes one forever, the mind as well as the body. If we don't start to speak of it as serious, the millennium of the man-made woman will be upon us, and we will have had no choice." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem Naomi Wolf
9775c3e When [beauty pornography is] aimed at men, its effect is to keep them from finding peace in sexual love. The fleeting chimera of the airbrushed centerfold, always receding before him, keeps the man destabilized in pursuit, unable to focus on the beauty of the woman--known, marked, lined, familiar---who hands him the paper every morning. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
2fffa35 The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold. Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
20f423e Today a woman must ignore her reflection in the eyes of her lover, since he might admire her, and seek it in the gaze of the God of Beauty, in whose perception she is never complete. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
e98426b "The surgeons are playing on the myth's double standard for the function of the body. A man's thigh is for walking, but a woman's is for walking and looking "beautiful." If women can walk but believe our limbs look wrong, we feel that our bodies cannot do what they are meant to do; we feel as genuinely deformed and disabled as the unwilling Victorian hypochondriac felt ill." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
9cba07b No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America. equality america nature nature-vs-nurture Thomas Jefferson
9f4d392 Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress truth. equality freedom Wole Soyinka
d2041cc The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. equality Peter Singer
5f1d622 The surgeons' market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social change won't cure; so the surgeons depend for their income on warping female self-perception and multiplying female self-hatred. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
d0ecf42 I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in 's of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. opportunities equality feminism self-determination fiction poetry women dreams empowerment dignity social-norms women-writers gender Virginia Woolf
55c3c4a In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people behave. If you ask me, being cultured and civilized is not about everyone being free and equal; it's about everyone being refined enough to act as if they were. Then no one has to feel guilty. equality refinement wealthy rich culture guilt Orhan Pamuk
f21dbf5 "Why does the social order feel the need to defend itself by evading the fact of real women, our faces and voices and bodies, and reducing the meaning of women to these formulaic and endlessly reproduced "beautiful" images? Though unconscious personal anxieties can be a powerful force in the creation of a vital lie, economic necessity practically guarantees it. An economy that depends on slavery needs to promote images of slaves that "justify" the institution of slavery. Western economies are absolutely dependent now on the continued underpayment of women. An idealogy that makes women feel "worth less" was urgently needed to counteract the way feminism had begun to make us feel worth more. This does not require a conspiracy; merely an atmosphere. The contemporary economy depends right now on the representation of women within the beauty myth." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
6089d25 Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession. men equality women-s-rights world women women-s-liberation gender Pearl S. Buck
fbebaf8 Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man? equality history faith government Howard Zinn
f9090c3 "Self-denial can lock women into a smug and critical condescension to other, less devout women. According to Appel, cult members develop..."an attitude of moral superiority, a contempt for secular laws, rigidity of thought, and the diminution of regard for the individual." A premium is placed on conformity to the cult group; deviation is penalized. "Beauty" is derivative; conforming to the Iron Maiden [an intrinsically unattainable standard of beauty that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for failure to achieve and conform to it] is "beautiful." The aim of beauty thinking, about weight or age, is rigid female thought. Cult members are urged to sever all ties with the past: "I destroyed all my fat photographs!"; "It's a new me!" equality feminism beauty dieting body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
eecd89c And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beating and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for their are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me. equality fear happiness fahrenheit-451 ray-bradbury inferiority peace Ray Bradbury
544bdf3 "She may resent because she resents feeling ugly in sex--or, if "beautiful," her body defined and diminished by pornography. It inhibits in her something she needs to live, and gives her the ultimate anaphrodisiac: the self-critical sexual gaze. Alice Walker's essay "Coming Apart" investigates the damage done: Comparing herself to her lover's pornography, her heroine "foolishly" decides that she is not beautiful." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
dbba160 "Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
f1632f7 "At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition-- women will only feel healthy if we are two thirds of the women we could be. How can an "ideal" be about women if it is defined as how much of a female sexual characteristic show on her body, and how much of a female life show on her face?" equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
84dff39 Above all, it seems to me wrongheaded and dangerous to invoke historical assumptions about environmental practices of native peoples in order to justify treating them fairly. ... By invoking this assumption [i.e., that they were/are better environmental stewards than other peoples or parts of contemporary society] to justify fair treatment of native peoples, we imply that it would be OK to mistreat them if that assumption could be refuted. In fact, the case against mistreating them isn't based on any historical assumption about their environmental practices: it's based on a moral principle, namely, that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate or exterminate another people. equality morality dispossession extermination subjugation native-americans environment suppression values Jared Diamond
2f45c1b "Beauty" and sexuality are both commonly misunderstood as some transcendent inevitable fact; falsely interlocking the two makes it seem doubly true that a woman must be "beautiful" to be sexual. That of course is not true at all. The definitions of both "beautiful" and "sexual" constantly change to serve the social order, and the connection between the two is a recent invention." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
0020224 Young women today feel vulnerable to judgment; if a harsh sentence is passed (or even suspected or projected), it is not her reputation that suffers so much as the stability of her moral universe. They did not have long to explore the sexual revolution and make it their own. Before the old chains had grown cold, while young women were still rubbing the circulation back into their ankles and taking tentative steps forward, the beauty industries levied a heavy toll on further investigations, and beauty pornography offered them designer bondage. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
ad7788f With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected and tortured after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves again. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? mind equality free books imagination education happiness intelligence conform breach burning examiners fliers grabbers imaginative-creators jumpers knowers moutains racers runners snatchers swimmers tinkerers bright intellectual critics target image dread judgment unfamiliar judge constitution rights cowardice bullying weapons different creativity torture school Ray Bradbury
e403588 Equality is a myth to protect the weak. some of us are strong in the Force, others are not. Only a fool believes otherwise. equality sith force fool Drew Karpyshyn
1795576 "Where woman do not fit the Iron Maiden [societal expectations/assumptions about women's bodies], we are now being called monstrous, and the Iron Maiden is exactly that which no woman fits, or fits forever. A woman is being asked to feel like a monster now though she is whole and fully physically functional. The surgeons are playing on the myth's double standard for the function of the body. A man's thigh is for walking, but a woman's is for walking and looking "beautiful." If women can walk but believe our limbs look wrong, we feel that our bodies cannot do what they are meant to do; we feel as genuinely deformed and disabled as the unwilling Victorian hypochondriac felt ill." equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
f67b906 Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market is our heart's desire. The beauty myth keeps a gap of fantasy between men and women. That gap is made with mirrors; no law of nature supports it. It keeps us spending vast sums of money and looking distractedly around us, but its smoke and reflection interfere with our freedom to be sexually ourselves. equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
cca5332 Teach her to question men who can have empathy for women only if they seem them as relational rather than as individual equal humans. Men who, when discussing rape, will always say something like 'if it were my daughter or wife or sister.' Yet such men do not need to imagine a male victim of crime as a brother or son in order to feel empathy. equality feminism humanity rape-culture sexism Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
1bc531c "In a sexual double standard as to who receives consumer protection, it seems that if what you do is done to women in the name of beauty, you may do what you like. It is illegal to claim that something grows hair, or makes you taller, or restores virility, if it does not. It is difficult to imagine that the baldness remedy Minoxidil would be on the market if it had killed nine French and at least eleven American men. In contrast, the long-term effects of Retin-A are still unknown--Dr. Stuart Yusps of the National Cancer Institute refers to its prescription as "a human experiment"--and the Food and Drug Administration has not approved it yet dermatologists are prescribing it to women at a revenue of over $150 million a year." -- equality feminism beauty body-image sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
1744c24 "What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to." hatred racism equality perception justice David Mitchell
00c53ae "Never," enjoins a women's magazine, "mention the size of his [penis] in public...and never, ever let him know that anyone else knows or you may find it shrivels up and disappears, serving you right." That quotation acknowledges that critical sexual comparison is a direct anaphrodisiac when applied to men; either we do not yet recognize that it has exactly the same effect on women, or we do not care, or . A man is unlikely to be brought within earshot of women as they judge men's appearance, height, muscle tone, sexual technique, penis size, personal grooming, or taste in clothes--all of which we do. The fact is that women are able to view men just as men view women, as objects for sexual and aesthetic evaluation; we too are effortlessly able to choose the male "ideal" from a lineup and if we could have male beauty as well as everything else, most of us would not say no. But so what? Given all that, women make the choice, by and large, to take men as human beings first." equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
6a0b8bb ...to her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice...Lauren Bacall, Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Plath - who were they? Only be reading could she find out. prejudice equality reading books learning celebrities information knowledge Alan Bennett
c4feae0 So why don't Americans cheat? Because they think that their system is legitimate. People accept authority when they see that it treats everyone equally, when it is possible to speak up and be heard, and when there are rules in place that assure you that tomorrow you won't be treated radically different from how you are treated today. Legitimacy is based on fairness, voice and predictability, and the U.S. government, as much as Americans like to grumble about it, does a pretty good job of meeting all three standards. Pg. 293 equality taxation legitimacy government fairness Malcolm Gladwell
1b4e005 "I heard Mr. many years ago in Chicago. The hall seated 5,000 people; every inch of standing-room was also occupied; aisles and platform crowded to overflowing. He held that vast audience for three hours so completely entranced that when he left the platform no one moved, until suddenly, with loud cheers and applause, they recalled him. He returned smiling and said: 'I'm glad you called me back, as I have something more to say. Can you stand another half-hour?' 'Yes: an hour, two hours, all night,' was shouted from various parts of the house; and he talked on until midnight, with unabated vigor, to the delight of his audience. This was the greatest triumph of oratory I had ever witnessed. It was the first time he delivered his matchless speech, 'The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child'. I have heard the greatest orators of this century in England and America; O'Connell in his palmiest days, on the Home Rule question; Gladstone and John Bright in the House of Commons; Spurgeon, James and Stopford Brooke, in their respective pulpits; our own Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Webster and Clay, on great occasions; the stirring eloquence of our anti-slavery orators, both in Congress and on the platform, but none of them ever equalled in his highest flights. equality america liberty-of-man-woman-and-child matchless oratory triumph ingersoll robert-g-ingersoll robert-green-ingersoll robert-ingersoll chicago praise england rights smile respect honor speech delight Elizabeth Cady Stanton
dd763dc What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages. mankind equality satisfaction humanity work life ceremony empty-form exaltation feudal-society honors pomp burdens fulfillment purpose-in-life peasants meaninglessness emptiness royalty kings flattery society values William Shakespeare
281de5a "It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him... It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero." equality heroism captain-america cover-ups eli elijah-bradley non-conformism patriot race-and-racism-in-america young-avengers comics corruption patriotism Ed Brubaker
2cd1d1e The pair smiled desperately at one another. And for the first time ever, despite the fact that everyone he knew - even the gods themselves - would condemn him for it, Jebel didn't think of Tel Hesani as a slave, but as an equal. equality god p275 thin-executioner Darren Shan
2ef8f8c "Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth." equality feminism beauty body-image diets sexual-violence cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
67bfba9 Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their advertisements create new markets. It is a boom industry because it is influentially placed to create its own demand through the pairing of text with ads in women's magazines. The industry takes out ads and gets coverage; women get cut open. They pay their money and they takes their chances. As surgeons grow richer, they are able to command larger and brighter ad spaces. equality feminism beauty body-image cosmetic-surgery diet-industry fashion-industry mass-culture objectification plastic-surgery cosmetics images marketing pornography society culture double-standards magazines sexuality eating-disorders self-esteem aging Naomi Wolf
66a6691 "The past week, Mother had denied her a pass to the market for some minor, forgettable reason, and she'd taken it hard. Her market excursions were the acme of her days, and trying to commiserate, I'd said, "I'm sorry, Handful, I know how you must feel." It seemed to me I did know what it felt to have one's liberty curtailed, but she blazed up at me. "So we just the same, me and you? That's why you the one to shit in the pot and I'm the one to empty it?" equality slavery Sue Monk Kidd
f091f7c "There can have been no doubt in Eleanor's mind as to what was expected of her as a wife. In her day, women were supposed to be chaste both inside and outside marriage, virginity and celibacy being highly prized states. When it came to fornication, women were usually apportioned the blame, because they were the descendants of Eve, who had tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden, with such dire consequences. Women, the Church taught, were the weaker vessel, the gateway to the Devil, and therefore the source of all lechery. St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "To live with a woman without danger is more difficult than raising the dead to life." Noblewomen, he felt, were the most dangerous so fall. Women were therefore kept firmly in their place in order to prevent them from luring men away from the paths of righteousness. Promiscuity--and its often inevitable consequence, illicit pregnancy--brought great shame upon a woman and her family, and was punishable by fines, social ostracism, and even, in the case of aristocratic and royal women, execution. Unmarried women who indulged in fornication devalued themselves on the marriage market. In England, women who were sexually experienced were not permitted to accuse men of rape in the King's court. Female adultery was seen as a particularly serious offence, since it jeopardized the laws of inheritance. Men, however, often indulged in casual sex and adultery with impunity. Because the virtue of high-born women was jealously guarded, many men sought sexual adventures with lower-class women. Prostitution was common and official brothels were licensed and subject to inspection in many areas. There was no effective contraception apart from withdrawal, and the Church frowned upon that anyway: this was why so many aristocratic and royal bastards were born during this period." equality history promiscuity purity virginity sexuality sexism Alison Weir
4fe2230 I cannot accept the proposition that the four-hundred-year travail of the American Negro should result merely in his attainment of the present level of American civilisation. I am far from convinced that being released from the African witch doctor was worthwhile if I am now - in order to support the moral contradictions and the spiritual aridity of my life - expected to become dependent on the American psychiatrist. It is a bargain I refuse. equality race psychiatry James Baldwin
ea7d21d I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians. equality goodness religion crusades openmindedness tolerance Ellis Peters
5cc6012 "Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilizations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, "All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas..." equality inequality democracy E.M. Forster
f162388 I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold... These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier. Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do -- and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there--all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. That's how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war. equality relationships love lgbtq homosexual medicine gay epidemic Larry Kramer
a552d06 The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals', or groups of individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it. racism equality freedom happiness demographics-of-united-states eric-garner george-zimmerman kajieme-powell killing-of-black-men-in-america michael-brown new-jim-crow pursuit-of-happiness racial-demographics tamir-rice trayvon-martin troy-anthony-davis mass-incarceration human-rights-day race-and-racism-in-america racial-discrimination diversity justice democracy Aberjhani
3644764 "Maybe someday, if I succeed at something, I'll stop saying, "It isn't fair" about everything else." equality perseverance dreams success life aims hardships dedication ambition trials determination difficulties fairness Lois Lowry
7bc0daf Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundation. racism equality reality race-relations James Baldwin
b329749 Equality, citizens, is not the whole of society on a level, a society of tall blades of grass and small oaks, or a number of entangled jealousies. It is, legally speaking, every aptitude having the same opportunity for a career; politically all consciences having the same right. Equality has an organ, gratuitous and compulsory education. We must begin with the right to the alphabet. equality Victor Hugo
0bc9872 The thing they wanted they called the Vote, but that demand so hollow, so eyeless, had all the terrifying effect of a mask. Behind that mask was a formless invincible discontent with the lot of womanhood. It wanted, -- it was not clear what it wanted, but whatever it wanted, all the domestic instincts of mankind were against admitting there was anything it could want. equality feminism women-s-rights suffrage vote H.G. Wells
fe0d7bf There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is no room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw to-day, so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. equality class Richard Llewellyn
a421465 "I spent years," he told me, "studying the phenomenon of love." "And I spend years studying the phenomenon of justice." "At base, we spend years studying the same thing." equality love justice John Howard Griffin
25d43ce It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things! racism equality slavery freedom empathy compassion humanity politics religion Harriet Beecher Stowe
c8654ef "You can't get around what's right, though," he said. "When we stop loving them, that's when they win." equality love peace John Howard Griffin
55180d2 If we have learned anything from the liberation movements, we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of the ways in which we discriminate until they are forcefully pointed out to us. A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable. equality liberation veganism vegan oppression Peter Singer
db2464b Literary works are not democracies. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We may, but the country of Novels, Etc., doesn't. In that faraway place, no character is created equal. One or two of them get all the breaks; the rest exist to get them to the finish line. literature equality heroes sidekicks Thomas C. Foster
a196165 Caste system is the most brilliantly administered scam in history. equality justice Narendra Jadhav
b424ec3 Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but 'created equal' was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if 'all men' did not truly mean all men. equality slavery freedom united-states-of-america Colson Whitehead
bc23d7e (I)t was by Cicero's attainments that that he'd gained special witness to the liberals' adjustment to a brush with equality. equality attainments witness Jonathan Lethem
d9b616d "Recall Marx's fundamental insight about the "bourgeois" limitation of the logic of equality: capitalist inequalities ("exploitation") are not the "unprincipled violations of the principle of equality," but are absolutely inherent to the logic of equality, they are the paradoxical result of its consistent realization. What we have in mind here is not only the wearisome old motif of how market exchange presupposes formally/legally equal subjects who meet and interact in the market; the crucial moment of Marx's critique of "bourgeois" socialists is that capitalist exploitation does not involve any kind of "unequal" exchange between the worker and the capitalist--this exchange is fully equal and "just," ideally (in principle), the worker gets paid the full value of the commodity he is selling (his labor-power). Of course, radical bourgeois revolutionaries are aware of this limitation; however, the way they try to counteract it is through a direct "terroristic imposition of more and more de facto equality (equal salaries, equal access to health services...), which can only be imposed through new forms of formal inequality (different sorts of preferential treatments for the underprivileged). In short, the axiom of equality" means either not enough (it remains the abstract form of actual inequality) or too much (enforce "terroristic" equality)-- it is a formalistic notion in a strict dialectical sense, that is, its limitation is precisely that its form is not concrete enough, but a mere neutral container of some content that eludes this form." equality freedom marx terror Slavoj Žižek
db2914f "After Lincoln became president he campaigned for colonization, and even in the midst of war with the Confederacy found time to work on the project, appointing Rev. James Mitchell as Commissioner of Emigration, in charge of finding a place to which blacks could be sent. On August 14th, 1862, he invited a group of black leaders to the White House to try to persuade them to leave the country, telling them that "there is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us." He urged them to lead their people to a colonization site in Central America. Lincoln was therefore the first president to invite a delegation of blacks to the White House--and did so to ask them to leave the country. Later that year, in a message to Congress, he argued not just for voluntary colonization but for the forcible removal of free blacks. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, shared these anti-black sentiments: "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men." Like Jefferson, he thought whites had a clear destiny: "This whole vast continent is destined to fall under the control of the Anglo-Saxon race--the governing and self-governing race." Before he became president, James Garfield wrote, "[I have] a strong feeling of repugnance when I think of the negro being made our political equal and I would be glad if they could be colonized, sent to heaven, or got rid of in any decent way . . . ." Theodore Roosevelt blamed Southerners for bringing blacks to America. In 1901 he wrote: "I have not been able to think out any solution to the terrible problem offered by the presence of the Negro on this continent . . . ." As for Indians, he once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't inquire too closely into the health of the tenth." William Howard Taft once told a group of black college students, "Your race is adapted to be a race of farmers, first, last, and for all times." Woodrow Wilson was a confirmed segregationist, and as president of Princeton he refused to admit blacks. He enforced segregation in government offices and was supported in this by Charles Eliot, president of Harvard, who argued that "civilized white men" could not be expected to work with "barbarous black men." During the presidential campaign of 1912, Wilson took a strong position in favor of excluding Asians: "I stand for the national policy of exclusion. . . . We cannot make a homogeneous population of a people who do not blend with the Caucasian race. . . . Oriental coolieism will give us another race problem to solve and surely we have had our lesson." Warren Harding also wanted the races kept separate: "Men of both races [black and white] may well stand uncompromisingly against every suggestion of social equality. This is not a question of social equality, but a question of recognizing a fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference. Racial amalgamation there cannot be." equality learning colonization genetics diversity race Jared Taylor
f0b4eb2 In China the egalitarian movement came not just from Zhu's vision, but also the Taoist ideas of balance, as Zhu would always point out. In Travancore it rose out of the Buddhist idea of compassion, in Yingzhou from the Hodenosaunee idea of the equality of all, in Firanja from the idea of justice before God. Everywhere the idea existed, but the world still belonged to a tiny minority of rich; wealth had been accumulating for centuries in a few hands, and the people lucky enough to be born into this old aristocracy lived in the old manner, with the rights of kings now spread among the wealthy of the Earth. Money had replaced land as the basis of power, and money flowed according to its own gravity, its laws of accumulation, which though divorced from nature, were nevertheless the laws ruling most countries on Earth, no matter their religious or philosophical ideas of love, compassion, charity, equality, goodness, and the like. Old Zhu had been right: humanity's behavior was still based on old laws, which determined how food and land and water and surplus wealth around, how the labor of the eight billions was owned. If these laws did not change, the living shell of the earth might well be wrecked, and inherited by seagulls and ants and cockroaches. equality wealth greed power Kim Stanley Robinson
63e9bd8 The world was created for Mankind, not for some of mankind. equality Richard Llewellyn
0b9f748 In a world of physical ease, brutal social equality, and reasonable economic equality, exclusiveness in frivolity becomes the most sought-after of all distinctions. equality frivolity Roger Zelazny
09a1745 All white people, I think, are implicated in these things so long as we participate in America in a normal way and attempt to go on leading normal lives while any one race is being cheated and tormented. But I now believe that we will probably go on leading our normal lives, and will go on participating in our nation in a normal way, unless there comes a time where Negroes can compel us by methods of extraordinary pressure to interrupt our pleasure. equality jonathan-kozol white-people white-supremacy race-and-racism-in-america white white-privilege race-relations race Jonathan Kozol
c62c941 [I]n the years that followed the persecutions, Christianity came to see itself, with great pride, as a persecuted Church. Its greatest heroes were not those who did good deeds but those who died in the most painful way. If you were willing to die an excruciating end in the arena then, whatever your previous holiness or lack thereof, you went straight to heaven: martyrdom wiped out all sins on the point of death. As well as getting there faster, martyrs enjoyed preferential terms in paradise, getting to wear the much-desired martyr's crown. Tempting celestial terms were offered: it was said that the scripture promised 'multiplication, even to a hundred times, of brothers, children, parents, land and homes'. Precisely how this celestial sum had been calculated is not clear but the general principle was: those who died early, publicly and painfully would be best rewarded. In many of the martyr tales the driving force is less that the Romans want to kill - and more that the Christians want to die. Why wouldn't they? Paradoxically, martyrdom held considerable benefits for those willing to take it on. One was its egalitarian entry qualifications. As George Bernard Shaw acidly observed over a millennium later, martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. More than that, in a socially and sexually unequal era it was a way in which women and even slaves might shine. Unlike most positions of power in the highly socially stratified late Roman Empire, this was a glory that was open to all, regardless of rank, education, wealth or sex. The sociologist Rodney Stark has pointed out that - provided you believe in its promised rewards - martyrdom is a perfectly rational choice. A martyr could begin the day of their death as one of the lowliest people in the empire and end it as one of the most exalted in heaven. So tempting were these rewards that pious Christians born outside times of persecution were wont to express disappointment at being denied the opportunity of an agonizing death. When the later Emperor Julian pointedly avoided executing Christians in his reign, one Christian writer far from being grateful, sourly recorded that Julian had 'begrudged the honour of martyrdom to our combatants'. madness equality christianity sacrifice monotheism martyrdom Catherine Nixey
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