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Quote by Jeff Biggers

“Fourth, resistance, as it has unfolded over the centuries, has claimed a “public commons” for “we the people” to have a voice in shaping the de- fining issues in our most trying times—beyond the thirty-nine wealthy white men who signed our Constitution. This means beyond elections.”

Quote by Jeff Biggers

Book:Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition
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Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition

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Jeff Biggers

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“Resistance, as an American credo, blossomed from the seed-time of our American Revolution as a universal right, not simply some random act to “disrupt civil order and stability” or fleeting moments of dissent or vague calls for freedom, as often defined. Resistance, over the centuries, has endowed a “public commons” for “we the people” to have a voice in framing the defining issues in our most trying times. And while those defining issues have remained unresolved, in many respects— expanding the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all; defending the right of free speech and freedom of the press as inalienable—they have taken new forms in an age of nuclear weapons and climate change.”

ResistanceProtestAmerican HistoryDissentJeff Biggers
Book:Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition
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“Second, resistance defies claims of a single American way; and reminds us that there are many American ways, often conflicting and sometimes deceiving. This is particularly true of resistance movements themselves; splintered by nature, the small and vital acts of resistance, often those of a single person, have their own sources of inspiration. They follow a different timeline in everyone’s life. At their best, resistance movements flow like many rivers into an ocean or historic water- shed event.”

Social JusticeResistanceProtestAmerican HistoryDissentJeff Biggers
Book:Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition
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“Of course, being perishable, the textiles themselves are not easy to learn about -- just like most of the rest of women's products (such as food and the recipes for preparing it). Therefore, to recover the reality of women's history, we must develop excellent techniques ... using not just the obvious data but learning to ferret out every helpful detail. Practical experiments like reweaving some of the surviving ancient cloths are a case in point. Among the thousands of archaeologists who have written about pottery or architecture, how many have actually tried to to make a pot or build a building? Precious few; but with so much data available for study in these fields, scholars felt flooded with information already, and such radical steps hardly seemed necessary. Our case is different; we must use every discoverable clue.”

RecreationArchaeologyTextiles
Book:Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
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“Learning to listen with one's whole body. Learning to hear with the eye and see with the ear and speak with the hearing. Knowing the Spirit in movement and not in stasis. Such a process makes us aware of the way some of our bodily and work-role functions were usurped for the rituals of the church over which women were forbidden to officiate as celebrants. New birth, symbolized by the uterine waters of baptism, was separated from physical birth. The Eucharist took the serving role in which women were cast all the time and adapted it as a seminal experience that only men could perform.”

ReligionWomenChristianityFeminismCatholicismRitualBaptismEucharistWomen S Work
Book:The journey is home
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“Work in the kitchen and in the home has been systemically devalued and outright dismissed for thousands of years. It's impossible to confine alcohol or cocktail history to the bar because so many types of people were not allowed to work or drink there until very recently in modern history. Alcohol was a deeply important part of the private home lives of people all over the world in the nineteenth century, not just the goings-on in the public taverns, hotels, saloons or pubs. Many of women's recipes and innovations are what various alcohol industries and companies are built on.”

AlcoholWomen S WorkHome Work
Book:Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol
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