Quote of the Day

It was common for white folk to tell their views to black folk: black people constantly, endlessly, helplessly listened, listened, listened, and then listened some more -- as servants, friends, colleagues, and allies, even -- to white folks' fears, desperation, and desires; their hopes, hates, and highs; their lows, too; their depression and exhilaration, their plans and pains, their utterly ordinary and unsurprisingly mediocre lives.  They did so without pausing or being asked to speak of their own lives and fears, their own apprehensions and terrors, their own deferred dreams and chilling nightmares -- the way something as simple as the slip of a tongue, the glance of an eye, a whistle might send them to their graves, disappearing into the very nothingness that white folk never noticed they had come from or would return to without fanfare or acclaim, without the gentle recognition of their humanity or magic or majestic ordinariness.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 16

Quote of the Day

When we meet other women who seem happier, more successful, and more confident than we are, it's all too easy to hate them for it [because we understand it to mean that] there's less for us.  When you meet a woman who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful, and professionally accomplished, befriend her.  Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn't make you look worse by comparison.  It makes you look better.

-- Ann Friedman

Quote of the Day

What criteria do we apply to properly designate the nature of "real" partnership?  Do two people have to have regular sexual contact and be driven by physical desire in order to rate as a couple?  Must they bring each other regular mutual sexual satisfaction?  Are they faithful to each other?  By those measures, many heterosexual marriages wouldn't qualify.  

-- Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies, p. 108

Quote of the Day

Suffragists had often staged political "pageants" in which they wore sashes emblazoned "Votes for Women."  But 1921, the year following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, brought a perversion of this display: the debut of the Miss America pageant, in which unmarried women showed off their decidedly apolitical attributes in competition against, as opposed to collaboration with, each other.

-- Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies, p. 62

Meeting Annie Spence

I had the pleasure of hearing librarian/author Annie Spence read from her delightful little book, Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, at the Herrick District Library last night.

Quote of the Day

Over a century in which women had exercised increasing independence, living more singly in the world than ever before, the movements that independent women had helped to power had resulted in the passage of the 14th, 15th, 18th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution.  They had reshaped the nation.

-- Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies, p. 58

Quote of the Day

The social crusades of the nineteenth century were made possible by the changing nature of female engagement with the world and new ideas about identity and dependence.

-- Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies, p. 51

Quote of the Day

There may be no greater testament to the suffocating power of marital expectation than the fact that, for a time, the banning of booze seemed a more practical recourse against spousal abuse than the reform of marriage law or redress of inequities within the home.

-- Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies, p. 49

Quote of the Day

Now more than ever, women are the most important political force in America.  We have enormous power to change the direction of this country, and it's time to use it.  Marching, knitting, and protesting are great.  But voting, and changing who is elected to office, is essential.  The women who come through the doors of Planned Parenthood health centers every day have a lot on their minds, above and beyond getting affordable, nonjudgmental health care: they want a safe neighborhood for their kids and an excellent public school system.  They want to earn a living wage, and work without facing harassment or abuse.  They want family leave and affordable child care.  They want to live in communities free from gun violence.  They deserve all this and more, and that's what I'll be fighting for.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 263

Quote of the Day

Now the floodgates are open.  Women are talking publicly about subjects that were once off-limits, and refusing to tolerate the sexual assault and harassment that have been accepted for far too long and there's no going back.  As Mom used to say, "You can't unring a bell."  It shouldn't be up to women to dismantle the patriarchy, but we can't sit around and hope someone else does it either.  Feminist is not a passive label; it means speaking out and standing up for women everywhere, and also for yourself.  One woman calling out an injustice is powerful enough; when we raise our voices together, we can shake the status quo to its foundation.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 262

Quote of the Day

Here's the good news: there has never been a better time to become an activist, agitator, or troublemaker.  I promise you, doing something -- whether it's showing up at a town hall meeting, getting some friends together to start your own organization, or just refusing to keep quiet about what you believe -- feels infinitely better than sitting on the sidelines.  Looking back on my life so far, the moments I regret most are the ones when I was too scared to take a chance -- the moments when I didn't know what to do, and so did nothing.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 261-262

Quote of the Day

Any time you're trying to change the way things are or challenge the powers that be, it's going to be controversial.  That's been true in every organizing job I've ever had.  Often the work that's most worthwhile seems the most intractable and impossible.  But just because someone else hasn't figured it out yet doesn't mean you can't.  After all, if it was easy, someone else would be doing it.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 211

Quote of the Day

Planned Parenthood is here for women who need health care, regardless of politics.  In fact, if you're a woman who finds a lump in your breast, politics is the furthest thing from your mind.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 185

Quote of the Day

People often ask, "Why do this?  Why get up every day and do work that is so hard?" ... Being able to choose to do work that makes a difference is a privilege.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 185

Quote of the Day

A lot of hardworking people -- especially women -- fall into the trap of thinking, "If I just stay at the office all night, I can do it all myself."  Those first months at Planned Parenthood quickly put any such thoughts to rest.  There were jobs I just could not do, no matter how late I worked or how committed I was.  To build the kind of organization I envisioned, I'd need to find people who had talent and expertise in areas I knew next to nothing about.  Then I'd need to step back and let them do their thing.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 155

Quote of the Day

There are a ton of great ideas floating around the universe, but the ones that end up becoming reality are those someone commits to doing, no matter what.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 124

Quote of the Day

Life isn't fair, but government should be.

-- Ann Richards

Quote of the Day

Frankly, I am surprised to find myself advising you and other women on how we can reach equality with men.  I spent most of my life thinking we were already there.  We are not.  For me, it took living through Hillary [Clinton]'s bewildering campaign and processing the factors behind her loss to understand that we are not there.  For other women, it was the promotion that never came, or the umpteenth time a male colleague was lauded for an idea that had been ignored when a woman suggested it earlier, or the most recent time you were told you are a good sport for staying later than all the men and being the one who did all "the real work" that showed us we are not there.  Some women I know -- particularly women who are black or brown, less wealthy, or older than I am -- have always understood we have not reached equality.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 172-173

Quote of the Day

I was on fire.  I wanted to turn to people and say, "Does everybody know what's going on?  Isn't somebody going to do something about this?"  Then I realized: What if that somebody was me?  I'd never started anything other than the odd food co-op and antipollution group, but I realized that if I didn't do it, it probably wasn't going to happen.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 107

Quote of the Day

Each of these women had more to risk than to gain by telling her [#MeToo] story, and did so anyway.  Each of them saw a reason to believe her words could make a difference, and they have.  Merely through the power of their words, these women had laid bare the true extent of sexually inappropriate male behavior in our culture, which in turn is forcing a zero-tolerance approach to the problem.  These women are writing a brand-new chapter in American history and radically changing the balance of power in the workplace, simply because they knew what had happened to them was unjust and decided that their own voices gave them the power to right an injustice.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 134-135

Quote of the Day

You can't win unless you compete.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 95

Quote of the Day

To those who ask why (women) waited so long to tell their [#MeToo] stories, I say the real question is, what gave them the courage to tell their stories even now?

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 134

Quote of the Day

It's easy to get caught up in the press and assume everyone else is as well, but I discovered that in most towns, people were busy just living their lives.  In those places we could make a big impact just by meeting people and listening to their concerns.  There's no better way to refute false attacks than to have a conversation with people and tell them what you know to be the truth.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 86

Quote of the Day

In the end, much of the press ended up applauding (Hillary Clinton's) candor during her book tour.  Predictably, there were a lot of people who lamented that "if only we could have seen this Hillary during the campaign, things would have turned out different."  That's all bullshit.  She was always the same person.  We are the ones who perceive her differently in different situations.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 129-130

Quote of the Day

(Men) say, "I work for an advertising firm and have never been in public office, but I'm going to run for Congress."  Women, on the other hand, say, "I was thinking about applying for that job, but I haven't finished my PhD yet."

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 83

Quote of the Day

Please understand that a lot of what the right does, and it's maybe their greatest genius, is they've created a code of conduct that they police, that they themselves don't have to, in any way, abide.

-- Jon Stewart, "Jon Stewart has a theory about the Samantha Bee controversy"

Quote of the Day

When it comes to pleasing the masses in a patriarchal society, women seeking power can't win playing by the old man-centric rules.  This is why we should stop expecting to find ourselves reflected in our country's history and models of power, and write our own story.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 128-129

Quote of the Day

Having strong unions doesn't just make things better for union members: if you enjoy affordable health care, an eight-hour workday, and weekends, thank the labor movement in America.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 60

Quote of the Day

Whatever a women's story might be, it's hard for her to tell it when her voice isn't heard.  It is also hard for her story to be told when people are too busy disliking the sound of her voice to listen to what she is saying.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 127

Quote of the Day

Once you start questioning authority, it's hard to stop.

-- Cecile Richards, Make Trouble, p. 49

Quote of the Day

There wasn't anything in our history to compare to Hillary [Clinton].  I guess that's what happens to the people who are making history.  We don't appreciate their value in real time.

-- Jennifer Palmieri, Dear Madam President, p. 127