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Quote by Virginia Woolf

“Así queda en parte explicado que a menudo las mujeres sean imprescindibles a los hombres. Y también así se entiende mejor por qué a los hombres les intranquilizan tanto las críticas de las mujeres; por qué las mujeres no les pueden decir este libro es malo, este cuadro es flojo o lo que sea sin causar mucho más dolor y provocar mucha más cólera de los que causaría y provocaría un hombre que hiciera la misma crítica. Porque si ellas se ponen a decir la verdad, la imagen del espejo se encoge; la robustez del hombre ante la vida disminuye. ¿Cómo va a emitir juicios, civilizar indígenas, hacer leyes, escribir libros, vestirse de etiqueta y hacer discursos en los banquetes si a la hora del desayuno y de la cena no puede verse a sí mismo por lo menos de tamaño doble de lo que es?”

Quote by Virginia Woolf

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Un cuarto propio

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Author

Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf

British modernist writer, known for her unique narrative techniques and profound portrayal of female experience. Her works include 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Mrs. Dalloway'. more

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“I see in marriage, as it at present exists, two opposing forces which it was the task of the lawgiver to reconcile. ... The laws were made by old men—any woman can see that—and they have been prudent enough to decree that conjugal love, apart from passion, is not degrading, and that a woman in yielding herself may dispense with the sanction of love, provided the man can legally call her his. In their exclusive concern for the family they have imitated Nature, whose one care is to propagate the species. Formerly I was a person, now I am a chattel. Not a few tears have I gulped down, alone and far from every one. ...”

“Girls are not meant to think like this. So they say. They never ask us what we actually do think- certainly not without telling us first what it is we should be thinking. And if we are not thinking what they have said we should then they say our thinking is wrong. If we tell them (men) what we think, they correct our thoughts. Thoughts leave our brains, exit via our mouths, hang in the air. ready to be shot down by their artillery all day long! We say we think a thing and they (men) ignore it or they (still men) say we just don't fully understand it. Then they expect silence. Or an apology. If neither is forthcoming, they look away. Perhaps they walk out a door. They rewrite the words that come out our mouths by teaching us to edit them inside our brains. No?”

“Certaines femmes ne savent pas vraiment pourquoi elles ont des enfants, elles suivent la norme ; d'autres les désirent impétueusement, et si le moindre obstacle se présente, elles font appel à toutes les possibilités médicales pour pallier à leur infécondité. D'autres encore, sans problèmes de fertilité, revendiquent de ne pas enfanter. Et alors ? Nous ne sommes pas un troupeau de femelles animales programmées pour procréer sans réfléchir, chacune d'entre nous est libre de choisir de vivre selon sa trajectoire personnelle, ses désirs, ses gènes, son inconscient. Ce qui était impossible hier est devenu une réalité.”

“I nodded sagely, pretended to be making some sort of useful observation of the white surfaces and clear tubes and gray machines that I lacked the doctorates to comprehend, and thought about dualism. Good and evil. Man and woman. All forces and powers and principalities equal and opposite. The notion that we live in a universe with that kind of comforting, obvious ledger. That is the kind of thinking that makes people believe that the moon controls menstrual cycles, that vaginas are magic, when all they really are is blood and tissue and, in the instance of one particularly ugly case that I drink to forget about, teeth. They're impressively versatile and under the right circumstances a lot of fun, but no more or less miraculous than your twenty-ninth vertebra.”