Quotes About Empowerment

Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination. — Erich Fromm

If we are to recognize and free ourselves from the influence of the Power Over model, we must hear ourselves — what words we speak and in what manner we speak them. Likewise, we must hear the words spoken to us and the manner in which they are spoken. This awareness can bring us to the realization of how we do or do not dignify, respect, protect, and esteem ourselves and ultimately all life.

Individually we have ever-increasing freedom to choose our own path on life's journey.

If you have been called names, it is very important that you realize that no one ever, for any reason, has a right to call you names. There is no justification for name calling. If you have become accustomed to being called names, it is also important to keep in mind that it is possible to live your life free from this kind of abuse: many people do.

By recognizing the abuse for what it is, the partner dispels the

her natural State of Personal Power.

acting to protect herself, the partner protects her own spirit and regains the security of her natural State of Personal Power.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

Perhaps it was freedom itself that choked her.

I remain less preoccupied with coming to voice because I know how quickly voice can be taken away. My concern now lies in finding effective ways to use the voice that I have claimed while I have it.

I remain less preoccupied with coming to voice because I know how quickly voice can be taken away. My concern now lies in finding effective ways to use the voice that I have claimed while I have it. [...] When it comes to my work, the only thing that is essential is that it contribute toward this end.

Self-definitions of Black womanhood were designed to resist the negative controlling images of Black womanhood advanced by Whites as well as the discriminatory social practices that these controlling images supported.

Despite differences of age, sexual orientation, social class, region, and religion, U.S. Black women encounter societal practices that restrict us to inferior housing, neighborhoods, schools, jobs, and public treatment and hide this differential consideration behind an array of common beliefs about Black women's intelligence, work habits, and sexuality. These common challenges in turn result in recurring patterns of experiences for individual group members.

Despite long-standing claims by elites that Blacks, women, Latinos, and other similarly derogated groups in the United States remain incapable of producing the type of interpretive, analytical thought that is labeled theory in the West, powerful knowledges of resistance that toppled former social structures of social inequality repudiate this view. Members of these groups do in fact theorize, and our critical social theory has been central to our political empowerment and search for justice.

The power of a free mind consists of trusting your own mind to ask the questions that need to be asked and your own capacity to figure out the strategies you need to get those questions answered. Over time, this requires building communities that make this kind of intellectual and political work possible.

Knowledge without wisdom is adequate for the powerful, but wisdom is essential for the survival of the subordinate.

Freedom is the pause between stimulus and action. In the moment after something occurs and before we react, we are free to choose how we will show up. What will you choose?

I know that it isn't just violence against women, it's how do we support ourselves and our families, how do we deal with health care for ourselves and our families? It's a bigger picture.

I want to organize so that women see ourselves as people who are entitled to power, entitled to leadership.

Women are called upon to defend every bit of progress we have made against particularly virulent attack. But we must also hold out a vision, put forth a positive agenda of what women need and want and then move forward toward that dream.

In the law, rights are islands of empowerment. . . . Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society.

How can she learn if you don't give her the chance to experience what she can do?

Protection in committed relationships is different from protection in dating. The battle cry is no longer "to the rescue" or "I'll fix this for you." The key now is maintenance, empowerment, assistance, and friendship

the exclusive imagining of God as male has deeply wounded women. Our immersion in these images convinced us that we are excluded from the divine, that we are inferior to men, that we are in need of a male savior, and that to name and imagine God in any other way than he has always been known is blasphemy.