“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. Because you are a girl is never reason for anything. Ever.”
“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.”
“You should write about take no-shit women like me. Girls need to know they can break the rules p.79”
“... Fun? you ask. Weren t feminists these grim-faced, humorless, antifamily, karate-chopping ninjas who were bitter because they couldn t get a man? Well, in fact the problem was that all too many of them HAD gotten a man, married him, had his kids, and then discovered that, as mothers, they were never supposed to have their own money, their own identity, their own aspirations, time to pee, or a brain. And yes, some women indeed became bad-tempered as a result. After all, no anger, no social change.”
“A slut is someone, usually a woman, who’s stepped outside of the very narrow lane that good girls are supposed to stay within. Sluts are loud. We’re messy. We don’t behave. In fact, the original definition of “slut” meant “untidy woman.” But since we live in a world that relies on women to be tidy in all ways, to be quiet and obedient and agreeable and available (but never aggressive), those of us who color outside of the lines get called sluts. And that word is meant to keep us in line.”
“Emotional neglect lays the groundwork for the emotional numbing that helps boys feel better about being cut off. Eruptions of rage in boys are most often deemed normal, explained by the age-old justification for adolescent patriarchal misbehavior, Boys will be boys. Patriarchy both creates the rage in boys and then contains it for later use, making it a resource to exploit later on as boys become men. As a national product, this rage can be garnered to further imperialism, hatred and oppression of women and men globally. This rage is needed if boys are to become men willing to travel around the world to fight wars without ever demanding that other ways of solving conflict can be found.”
“the only thing required to be a woman is to identify as one. - period, end of story.”
“When men are oppressed, it s a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it s tradition.”
“Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.”
“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.”
“Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework.”
“blessed be she who is both furious and magnificent”
“Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears. ”
“...One of the reasons so many women say I m not a feminist but... (and then put forward a feminist position), is that in addition to being stereotyped as man-hating Amazons, feminists have also been cast as antifamily and antimotherhood.”
“Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain t. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up the flowers, wind, water, a big rock.”