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Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich Quotes

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Famous Adrienne Rich Quotes

“Mothers and daughters have always exchanged with each other - beyond the verbally transmitted lore of female survival - a knowledge that is subliminal, subversive, preverbal: the knowledge flowing between two alike bodies, one of which has spent nine months inside the other.”

TwoBodyMotherMonthsSurvivalDaughterFemaleNineSubversiveMother And DaughterNine MonthsSubliminal
Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution
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“The mother's battle for her child with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.”

NeedsHumansChildrenWarMotherPassionForceCommonPovertyBattleSurvivalHuman LifeSicknessExploitationCallousness
Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution
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“The worker can unionize, go out on strike; mothers are divided from each other in homes, tied to their children by compassionate bonds; our wildcat strikes have most often taken the form of physical or mental breakdown.”

ChildrenHomeFormMotherInspiringTakenWorkersStrikesTiesDividedCompassionateTiedMothers DayBreakdownRich WomenMental BreakdownWildcats
Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution
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“But can you imagine how some of them were envying you your freedom to work, to think, to travel, to enter a room as yourself, not as some child’s mother or some man’s wife?…we have no familiar, ready-made name for a woman who defines herself, by choice, neither in relation to children nor to men, who is self-identified, who has chosen herself.”

ThinkingMenChildrenMadeSelfMotherChoicesNamesRoomsWifeImagineReadyRelationChosenFamiliarYour Freedom
Author:Adrienne Rich
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“As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swamp-grass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son. She exists for one purpose: to bear and nourish the son.”

HeartMotherPurposeSufferingSonHugeBearsGuiltLegsTeethGrassBreastsHelplessProvokingPatriarchySnakesCavesInfantEroticLapMarbleBrowsSwampsAvidMartyred
Author:Adrienne Rich
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“Much male fear of feminism is the fear that, in becoming whole human beings, women will cease to mother men, to provide the breast, the lullaby, the continuous attention associated by the infant with the mother. Much male fear of feminism is infantilism–the longing to remain the mother’s son, to possess a woman who exists purely for him.”

MenHumansWholeMotherHuman BeingsAttentionFeminismSonBecomingLongingMalesCeaseBreastsInfantBeing A WomanLullabyBecoming Whole
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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