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Quote by Sarah Smarsh

“Feminism and all movements for social progress inevitably contain a gap between what’s on paper and what’s really going on: between the feminism proclaimed and the feminism enacted, the women’s rights legislated and the women’s rights enforced, the progress in policy and the progress in culture. Women of Generation X, of which I represent the youngest contingent, had more freedom than their mothers in meaningful ways. We were the first full beneficiaries of Title IX protections guaranteeing access to education and outlawing sexual discrimination in the workplace. We were entering our first romantic partnerships as the Violence Against Women Act became law. But the cultural cues we received growing up were full of gaps and dissonance.”

Quote by Sarah Smarsh

Book:She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs
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She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

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Sarah Smarsh

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“Working-class women might not be fighting for a cause with words, time, and money they don’t have, but they possess an unsurpassed wisdom about the way gender works in the world. Take, for example, the concept of intersectionality. A working-class woman of color might not know that word, but she knows better than anyone how her race, gender, and economic struggles intertwine. There is, then, intellectual knowledge—the stuff of research studies and think pieces—and there is experiential knowing. Both are important, and women from all backgrounds might possess both. But we rarely exalt the knowing, which is the only kind of feminism many working women have.”

FeminismGender
Book:She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs
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“It occurred to me that Mr. Whitmore seemed to have no doubts about my ability to take part in this mission. I was, to him, a competent and required presence. Not a worthless, overbearing spinster or deficient female. Was this how men felt all the time? This intrinsic acceptance of one’s significance? No wonder they walked through life expecting so much as their due.”

FeminismConfidence
Book:The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin
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“But art can abstract us from the demands placed on our bodies at any given time. It can remind us that we do not only exist in relation to our gendered responsibilties: we are not only someone’s mother or sister, or carer — we are individuals brimming with sophisticated ideas. Creativity is at the heart of any new world we seek to build.”

FeminismFeministFeminist Authors
Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“When women and non-binary people make art with the intention of raising consciousness, they are not only contributing to the feminist fight, they are demonstrating that feeling is a way of knowing and a powerful starting point for building a political framework. Affect, the ability to be moved, should never be underestimated. It is what brings us to feminist politics and what sustains us.”

FeminismFeministFeminist Theory
Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“[…] it’s not enough to argue that because the ‘wrong’ kind of people end up in prison we should rethink it. We must rethink the prison system and work to abolish it because feminism demands the abolition of systems and structures that make it impossible for us to live collectively. Prison obscures the causes of social ills; it sweeps violence under the rug and affirms the idea that it is inevitable. In a society that produces ‘criminals’, we all bear responsibility for transforming the structures that make this label possible.”

FeminismFeminist TheoryFeminist Author
Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“मेरी उच्च शिक्षित और आत्मनिर्भर माँ जानती थी कि महिलाएं किसी भी पद पर पहुंच जाएं, घर-बार उन्हें खुद ही सम्हालना होगा इसीलिए माँ की ट्रेनिंग हर समय निर्बाध चलती रहती थी। हाँ, पापा के साथ खड़े होने के लिए मैं एक मजबूत कंधा बनने की कोशिश करती रहती थी।”

LifeFeminismLife LessonMothers And DaughtersMother S Advice
Book:आई डोन्ट लाइक यू
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“Women had less opportunities to obtain food and required a lot of help, she needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the women had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations. The result of these different survival strategies, so the theory goes, is that men have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive and to excel in politics and business, whereas women have tended to move out of the way and dedicate their lives to raising children. But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women's dependence on external help made them dependent on men rather than on other women, and that male competitiveness made men's socially dominant. There are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal society. Since females need external help, they are obliged to develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all female social networks that help each member raise her children. Males meanwhile spend their time fighting and competing. Their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped. Bonobo and elephant societies are controlled by strong networks of cooperative females, while the self-centered and uncooperative males are pushed to the sidelines. Though Bonobo females are weaker on average than the males, the females often gang up to beat males who overstepped their limits. If this is possible among bonobos and elephants, why not among Homo sapiens? Sapiens are relatively weak animals whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women, even if they are dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to cooperate to alt maneuver and manipulate aggressive, autonomous, and self-centered men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative, men, control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative, women?”

Feminism
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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