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Quote by Sheila Jeffreys

Work

The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade

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Author

Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys

Sheila Jeffreys is a renowned political scientist born on May 13, 1948. Her research focuses on gender politics and feminist theory, offering profound insights into issues of gender inequality and women's rights. more

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“For sixty years I've been shaped by men's point of view on every aspect of my life, from history, politics, music and art to my mind and my body – and centuries more male-centric history before that. I'm saturated with their opinions. I can think and see like a straight white man. I can look at a woman and objectify her, see her how a man sees her. I can think like a male criminal. To stay safe you have to anticipate their thoughts and actions. I can think like a rapist for fuck's sake.”

“I am N!ai. When the white people first came, I was already a young woman with breasts. Before the white people came, we did what our hearts wanted. We lived in different places, far apart, and when our hearts wanted to travel, we traveled. We were not poor; we had everything we could carry. No one told us what to do. Now the white people tell us to stay in this place. There are too many people. There’s no food to gather. Game is far away, and people are dying of tuberculosis. But when I was a little girl, we left sickness behind us when we moved.”

“I am N!ai. When the white people first came, I was already a young woman with breasts. Before the white people came, we did what our hearts wanted. We lived in different places, far apart, and when our hearts wanted to travel, we travelled. We were not poor; we had everything we could carry. No one told us what to do. Now the white people tell us to stay in this place. There are too many people. There’s no food to gather. Game is far away, and people are dying of tuberculosis. But when I was a little girl, we left sickness behind us when we moved.”

“The transition of ownership for the authorship of your life is handed off to you whether you are ready or not and no one is left to blame for what occurs in the rest of your story but you.”

“But,” I asked, “ why insult a man after he has gone to all that trouble to track and kill an animal and when he is going to share the meat with you so that your children will have something to eat?” “Arrogance,” was his cryptic answer. “Arrogance?” “Yes, when a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a chief or a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”