Quotes About Oppression

So, the book is not 'anti-religion.' It is against the use of religion as a front for tyranny; which is a different thing altogether.

Five members of the heretical sect of Quakers have been arrested," he says, smiling blandly, "and more arrests are anticipated." Two of the Quakers appear onscreen, a man and a woman. They look terrified, but they're trying to preserve some dignity in front of the camera. The man has a large dark mark on his forehead; the woman's veil has been torn off, and her hair falls in strands over her face. Both of them are about fifty.

Watch out for the leaders, Crake used to say. First the leaders and the led, then the tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres. That's how it's always gone.

It's outrageous, one woman said, but without belief. What was it about this that made us feel we deserved it?   When

I could spell it, I say. Write it down. He hesitates at this novel idea. Possibly he doesn't remember I can. I've never held a pen or a pencil, in this room, not even to add up the scores. Women can't add, he once said, jokingly. When I asked him what he meant, he said, For them, one and one and one and one don't make four. What

This was the story of the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces.

I've had cause to notice over the course of what you might call my Gilead career that underlings given sudden power frequently become the worst abusers of it.

For a time I almost believed what I understood I was supposed to believe. I numbered myself among the faithful for the same reason that many in Gilead did: because it was less dangerous.

El control de las mujeres y sus descendientes ha sido la piedra de toque de todo régimen represivo de este planeta. Napoleón y su «carne de cañón», la esclavitud y la mercancía humana, una práctica eternamente renovada: ambas encajan aquí. A quienes promueven la maternidad forzosa habría que preguntarles: Cui bono? ¿A quién beneficia? A veces a un sector, a veces a otro. Nunca a nadie.

I had no faith in the wise choices of the Aunts: I feared that I would end up married to a goat on fire.

Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

Romania, for instance, had anticipated Gilead in the eighties by banning all forms of birth control, imposing compulsory pregnancy tests on the female population, and linking promotion and wage increases to fertility.

The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before, more than once.

You'll learn about all of that when you're old enough," Aunt Vidala would say. All of that: the Handmaids were part of all of that. Something bad, then; something damaging, or something damaged, which might be the same thing.

They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman.

The saying It's not over 'til the fat lady sings is erroneous, because women who are fat are never listened to.

Thucydides said, "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Supposed I don't want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.

her heart swelled up with misery, until it felt too large for her bosom. It beat with odd little jerks; her hands were cold, and a feeling of disaster oppressed her. There were pain and bewilderment in her face, the bewilderment of a pampered chhild who has always had her own way for the asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the unplesantness of life.

Ah's sceered of cows, Miss Scarlett. Ah ain' nebber had nuthin' ter do wid cows. Ah ain' no yard nigger. Ah's a house nigger." "You're a fool nigger, and the worst day's work Pa ever did was to buy you," said Scarlett slowly, too tired for anger. "And if I ever get the use of my arm again, I'll wear this whip out on you.

How closely women crutch the very chains that bind them!

Arrogance and callousness for the conquerors, bitter endurance and hatred for the conquered.

two of Ma's darkies

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free