Quotes About Empowerment

We must not only vote but fight to vote. The voting booth really is the one place on earth where the least powerful equal the powerful. p176

There is no such thing as a perfect leader. We have to learn to lead ourselves.

People now ask me if I'm passing the torch. I always explain that no, I'm keeping my torch, thank you very much. And I'm using it to light the torches of others. Because the truth is that the old image of one person with a torch is part of the problem, not the solution. We each need a torch if we are to see where we're going. And together, we create so much more light.

How long before both women and men are allowed to see self-respecting rebellion as a lifelong possibility?

For women, the only alternative to being a feminist is being a masochist.

Being graded for memorizing male accomplishments with the deep message that we can learn what others do but never do it ourselves.

As feminism has changed academia by enlarging what is taught, academia has sometimes changed feminism.

The idea that women are 'our own worst enemies' forces us to admit that we don't have the power to be, even if we wanted too.

My father did not have to trade dying alone for the joys of the road. My mother did not have to give up a journey of her own to have a home. Neither do I. Neither do you.

The first step toward speaking for others is speaking for ourselves.

The problem for all women is we're identified by how we look, instead of by our heads and hearts.

For sad if obvious reasons, women (especially white women who are seduced by access to the powerful) are the only discriminated-against group whose members seem to think that, if they don't take themselves seriously, someone else will.

Adalah revolusionar bagi perempuan untuk menyanyikan kepedihan, tapi lebih lagi bila ia menyanyikan seluruh lagu kehidupan

if you don't stand up for yourselves, how can you stand up for anybody else?

Power is being redefined. Women often explain with care that we mean power to control our lives, but not to dominate others.

In the same way that individual women are often underestimated, a movement of women is also understimated, but the truth is that, if people realize someone is willing to talk about these deep and daily concerns, they show up.

She didn't put her finger to the wind; she became the wind.

Statistically speaking, home is an even more dangerous place for women than the road.

I pray for the courage To walk naked At any age To wear red and purple, To be unladylike, Inappropriate, Scandalous and incorrect To the very end.

Basically, I feel different from most other women. I feel I don't have to put on an act. If I'm not feminine enough for someone, I don't care, because femininity is different in everyone's mind.

the most revolutionary act for a woman will be a self-willed journey—and to be welcomed when she comes home.

I recommend trying this kind of grassroots organizing for a week or a year, a month or a lifetime—working for whatever change you want to see in the world. Then one day you will be talking to a stranger who has no idea you played any part in the victory she or he is celebrating.

It doesn't matter if you love the people society says you shouldn't love or do or don't have children with more than one of them; it doesn't matter if you have money, go to church, or obey the law; what matters is that you're not cruel or wasteful, that you don't keep the truth from those who need it, suppress someone's will or talent, take more than you need from nature, or fail to use your own talent and will.

Never having seen women play chess, they assumed this game wasn't for them and without even a female teacher as role model, they dropped out.