Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Marilyn French

Quote by Marilyn French

Work

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Marilyn French
Marilyn French

Marilyn French, born on November 21, 1929 and died on May 2, 2009, was a prominent American author known for her feminist perspective in her works. Her writings focused on the status of women in society, family, and sexuality, with notable works including 'The Feminine Mystique'. more

You May Also Like

“There is only one way for women to reach full human potential—by participating in the mainstream of society, by exercising their own voice in all the decisions shaping that society. For women to have full identity and freedom, they must have economic independence. Breaking through the barriers that had kept them from the jobs and professions rewarded by society was the first step, but it wasn’t sufficient. It would be necessary to change the rules of the game to restructure professions, marriage, the family, the home. The manner in which offices and hospitals are structured, along the rigid, separate, unequal, unbridgeable lines of secretary/executive, nurse/doctor, embodies and perpetuates the feminine mystique. But the economic part would never be complete unless a dollar value was somehow put on the work done by women in the home, at least in terms of social security, pensions, retirement pay. And housework and child rearing would have to be more equally shared by husband, wife, and society. Equality and human dignity are not possible for women if they are not able to earn. When the young radical kids came into the movement, they said it was “boring” or “reformist” or “capitalist co-option” to place so much emphasis on jobs and education. But very few women can afford to ignore the elementary economic facts of life. Only economic independence can free a woman to marry for love, not for status or financial support, or to leave a loveless, intolerable, humiliating marriage, or to eat, dress, rest, and move if she plans not to marry. But the importance of work for women goes beyond economics. How else can women participate in the action and decisions of an advanced industrial society unless they have the training and opportunity and skills that come from participating in it?”

Feminism
Book:The Feminine Mystique
Create image

“We have seen that the orders for the destruction of the religion of the Goddess were built into the very canons and laws of the male religions that replaced it. It is clear that the ancient reverence for the female deity did not simply cease to be but that its disappearance was gradually brought about, initially by the Indo-European invaders, later by the Hebrews, eventually by the Christians and even further by the Mohammedans. Along with the ultimate acceptance of the male religions throughout a large part of the world, the precepts of sexual "morality," that is, pre marital virginity and marital fidelity for women, were incorporated into the attitudes and laws of the societies which embraced them.”

ReligionFeminismSexismMisogynyWomen S RightsWomen S LiberationWomen S HistoryGoddess Worship
Book:When God Was A Woman
Create image

“We cannot avoid observing the continual emphasis upon female sexuality as acceptable only when women were safely designated as the property of one specific male and that any deviation from that rule was denounced as harlotry or adultery and subject to punishment by death, making the sexual customs of the older religion rather difficult to follow.”

ReligionFeminismSexismMisogynyWomen S RightsWomen S LiberationWomen S HistoryGoddess Worship
Book:When God Was A Woman
Create image

“Instead of empowering women, intersectional feminism encourages them to be victims. It is an endless marathon to find out who is the most hard done by. And it forces women to do and say the politically correct thing, in order to keep the sisterhood happy. This goes doubly so for women like Sommers, given the racial politics of identity that sees white women constantly forced to apologise for being the oppressor due to our privilege, race and skin colour. And if we are not on board with forfeiting our individual experience and spruiking an endorsed narrative – – then we are the problem.”

FeminismIntersectional Feminism
Author:Vanessa de Largie
Create image

“For some, measuring porn’s real-world effects boils down to one extreme and ultimately misleading question: “Does it lead to rape?” What is overlooked here is the more subtle question of how porn shapes the culture and the men who use it. No anti-porn feminist I know has suggested that there is one image, or even a few, that could lead a nonrapist to rape; the argument, rather, is that taken together, pornographic images create a world that is at best inhospitable to women, and at worst dangerous to their physical and emotional well-being. In an unfair and inaccurate article that is emblematic of how anti-porn feminist work is misrepresented, Daniel Bernardi claims that Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon believed that “watching pornography leads men to rape women.”³ Neither Dworkin nor MacKinnon, pioneers in developing a radical feminist critique of pornography, saw porn in such simplistic terms. Rather, both argued that porn has a complicated and multilayered effect on male sexuality, and that rape, rather than simply being caused by porn, is a cultural practice that has been woven into the fabric of a male-dominated society. Pornography, they argued, is one important agent of such a society since it so perfectly encodes woman-hating ideology, but to see it as simplistically and unquestionably leading to rape is to ignore how porn operates within the wider context of a society that is brimming with sexist imagery and ideology.”

FeminismAnti Pornography
Book:Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
Create image

“To be “unmanly” is, of course, within our gender binary system, to be feminine, and here lies the essence of gender socialization for males: they need, at all times, to distance themselves as much as possible from anything constructed by the culture as feminine. The feminine hence becomes feared—and that which we fear, we also learn to despise.”

FeminismAnti Pornography
Book:Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
Create image

“High fashion turns women into works of art, and women have always been willing to sacrifice freedom for the appearance of transcendence. What power is to a man, illusion is to a women. You can count on this: in any society, in any period, whatever style emerges to distinguish the elite from ordinary women will physically constrict.”

FeminismSexismMisogynyWomen S RightsWomen S LiberationRadical FeminismWomen S History
Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
Create image