Quotes About Equality

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Nowhere else in the whole range of life on earth, is this degradation found--the female capering and prancing before the male. It is absolutely and essentially his function, not hers.

Have you no respect for the past? For what was thought and believed by your foremothers?" "Why, no," she said. "Why should we? They are all gone. They knew less than we do. If we are not beyond them, we are unworthy of them—and unworthy of the children who must go beyond us.

There are the two of you - the two sexes- to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world

Only women there—and children," Jeff urged excitedly. "But they look—why, this is a CIVILIZED country!" I protested. "There must be men.

When I see them knit,' Terry said, 'I can almost call them feminine.' 'That doesn't prove anything,' Jeff promptly replied. 'Scotch shepherds knit --always knitting.

Only as we live, think, feel, and work outside the home, do we become humanly developed, civilized, socialized.

In exact proportion as women grow independent, educated, wise and free, do they become less submissive to men-made fashions.

The adjectives and derivatives based on woman's distinctions are alien and derogatory when applied to human affairs; "effeminate"--too female, connotes contempt, but has no masculine analogue; whereas "emasculate"--not enough male, is a term of reproach, and has no feminine analogue. 'Virile'--manly, we oppose to 'puerile'--childish, and the very world 'virtue' is derived from 'vir'--a man.

This led me very promptly to the conviction that those "feminine charms" we are so fond of are not feminine at all, but mere reflected masculinity—developed to please us because they had to please us, and in no way essential to the real fulfillment of their great process. But Terry came to no such conclusion.

I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets in surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments, and the middle one in particular was shingled with them.

And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.

There are many who think in one syllable, who say, 'women don't dress to please men--they dress to please themselves--and to outshine other women.

The only thing they can think of about a man is Fatherhood!" said Terry in high scorn. "Fatherhood! As if a man was always wanting to be a father!

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform.

Do you know you are a real comfort," she told him suddenly. "I never knew a man before who could—well, leave off being a man for a moment and just be a human creature.

O que me levou à convicção de que os "charmes femininos" que apreciamos não são nada femininos, mas apenas reflexos da masculinidade — desenvolvidos para nos agradar porque elas precisam nos agradar —, nem um pouco essenciais ao desempenho.

We found a friendly nut-tree, those large, satisfying nuts we already knew so well, and filled our pockets. I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets in surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments.

They were inconveniently reasonable, those women.

There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

This is the woman's century, the first chance for the mother of the world to rise to her full place . . . and the world waits while she powders her nose.

Have you no respect for the past? For what was thought and believed by your foremothers?" "Why, no," she said. "Why should we? They are all gone. They knew less than we do. If we are not beyond them, we are unworthy of them—and unworthy of the children who must go beyond us.

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.