To punish the individual for the sins of the system makes no sense. We’re responsible for changing it, yes. But we can’t actually invent another universe, so we have to start where we are.
There are many ways of supporting gender equality, from something as simple as paid sick leave and flexible work hours to attributing an economic value to all care-giving, and making that amount tax deductible.
Unequal access to money and media plus bias, external and internalized, and male-dominant religions and illegality at the polls – all those are reasons for women’s wildly unequal political power.
The voting booth is the only place that a pauper equals a billionaire, and any woman equals any man.
The Internet is an almost miraculous way of getting information, of finding and organizing with each other, both minutely and globally. A million times better than the phone and the mimeograph! Also much better than TV, which is one-way and passive.
As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I’ve always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other’s lives are our best textbooks.
Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.
When you attempt something new, there’s always fear. A couple of helpful slogans to me are “follow the fear” or “fear is a sign of growth.”
If you look at the public opinion polls even, support for all the issues, people who self-identify as feminists are as least as many as those who self-identify as Republicans.
We need to return and go forward to the understanding that there is God in all living things, not more in men than women, and not more in humans than in nature. To believe otherwise is only an excuse for dominating women and nature.
Religion is often politics made sacred.
Worry less about solutions from the top or the idea that there is a solution, but try to do whatever you can and instill in each action the values that you want to result.
I always say to audiences of men: “Cooperation beats submission. Trust me.”
The original languages didn’t even have he and she. They didn’t have concepts of masculine and feminine. People were people. And the whole idea was that we were in a circle together, not in a hierarchy together.
I always thought that “humanist” was a good word long before I understood that anyone thought it was a bad word.
Little girls do not wake up in the morning and say “I dream of being a prostitute.” It is a terrible, terrible life. Body invasion is more traumatic than even getting beaten up. In certain circumstances, obviously, it may be a way to survive.
A movement happens when people are inspired by somebody, but they do it themselves. You don’t wait for someone else. You do it yourself.
Frequently people just vote for the party out of power because they’re disappointed or angry at what is happening at the moment.
I know that lack of contact creates more lack of contact, and contact creates more contact, or at least an ability to talk to with each other.
I think we all have the power to name ourselves. I try to call people what it is they wish to be called. But we can take the sting out of epithets and bad words by using them.