“Still, no one much celebrated having found a previously unknown painter [Marie Denise Villers] who was equal to the great David. Though the public continued to love the painting - they may not have known David from Delacroix, at any rate - soma academics had a change of heart about the painting itself.
Sterling (see start of chapter) said some not-very nice things, beginning with, "The notion that our portrait may have been painted by a woman is, let us confess, an attractive idea." Why attractive? Because it explains everything wrong with the work: "cleverly concealed weaknesses" and "a thousand subtle artifices" that all add up to "the feminine spirit."
In other words: Isn't that just like a woman?”
Source: Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History
“This simple fact of sculpture making is as true today (Jeff Koons, anyone?) as it was in the nineteenth century. But critics of the Marmorean Flock used it to raise the ageless trope against women artist: they are not the authors of their own works. Marmorean Flock member Harriet Hosmer railed against such spiteful ignorance: "We women-artists have no objection to its being known that we employ assistants; we merely object to its being supposed that it is a system peculiar to ourselves." Nearly all sculptors of the time used stonecutters and other artisans in executing their works.
Except, not Lewis. She famously wielded the chisel herself. Early on she probably couldn't afford assistants, but she no doubt continued because as a woman of color she could not afford any hint of fraud.”
Source: Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History
“[..] And here, suddenly, was Woolf's own talented sister. The one who survived. The sister who painted.
My first thought was: how sad. What fate could be worse than to be in close proximity to genius, capable of recognizing it, but, alas, something less-than? And Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell must have been less-than, because I'd barely heard of her. How terrible, and sadly typical, that in my long pursuit of women artists I'd apparently learned nothing. Least of all, that they are all too easily lost to time, a condition rarely any reflection on their talent.”
Source: Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History
“At no time did anyone throw his cap in the air and rejoice that another painter, capable of equaling Hals at his best, had been discovered.”
Source: The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work
“...del mismo modo que examinarse, escucharse y quejarse forman parte del eterno femenino, no quejarse forma parte del eterno masculino”
Source: Vosotras bellas, vosotros fuertes
“The iron lady took you on a wild ride
Filled with courage, ambition, and passion
Her inner compass served as her guide
So being classy became a timeless fashion”
Source: On The Edge of Town
“(S)he no longer felt she was there simply to serve the dreams of other people. She no longer felt like she had to find sole fulfillment as some imaginary perfect daughter or sister or parter or wife or mother or employee or anything other than a human being, orbiting her own purpose, and answerable to herself.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“Es cierto que la situación no es tan grave como en la época victoriana, cuando las mujeres no eran más que «un vestido» con una cabeza en lo alto; pero es fácil darse cuenta del camino que nos queda por recorrer: basta con constatar que las mujeres todavía tenemos que esforzarnos para encontrar una palabra aceptable con que denominar la parte de nuestro cuerpo más fundamental y definitoria: los genitales. En 2012, a la congresista de Michigan Lisa Brown se le prohibió seguir interviniendo en el Congreso por haber pronunciado la palabra «vagina» en un debate sobre la anticoncepción. El congresista republicano Mike Callton argumentó que la palabra era tan «repugnante y asquerosa que él jamás se atrevería a pronunciarla ni delante de una mujer ni de un grupo de hombres y mujeres».”
Source: More Than a Woman: A Brutally Honest and Hilarious Feminist Memoir on Parenting, Marriage, and Middle-Age
“Aunque a los hombres que tienen miedo o sienten que se han quedado rezagados no se lo parezca, cada vez que una mujer tiene éxito, paradójicamente también les está poniendo las cosas más fáciles a los hombres. En última instancia, está teniendo éxito por todos nosotros. Por eso el feminismo nunca podrá «ir demasiado lejos». Las mujeres no pueden «ganar» demasiado. Porque cuando «ser mujer» y «hacer cosas de mujeres» se considere igual de empoderador que «ser hombre» y «hacer cosas de hombres», los hombres no se avergonzarán de adoptar las cosas que a nosotras nos hacen más felices. Por fin viviremos en un mundo donde no existirán las «cosas de chicas» ni las «cosas de chicos», todo estará, sencillamente, dentro de la gran caja de herramientas de los seres humanos.”
Source: More Than a Woman: A Brutally Honest and Hilarious Feminist Memoir on Parenting, Marriage, and Middle-Age
“If you don’t give up on something you truly believe in, you will find a way.”