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"Literature is impoverished beyond our counting by the doors that have been shut upon women."
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"To me it seems that too many young women of this time share the same creed. 'Live, laugh, love, be nothing but happy, experience everything, et cetera et cetera.' How monotonous, how useless this becomes. What about the honors of Joan of Arc, Beauvoir, Stowe, Xena, Princess Leia, or women that would truly fight for something other than just their own emotions?"
"The idea of "common oppression" was a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true nature of women's varied and complex social reality. Women are divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege, and a host of other prejudices. Sustained woman bonding can occur only when these divisions are confronted and the necessary steps are taken to eliminate them."
"The mass depiction of the modern woman as a 'beauty' is a contradiction: Where modern women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality, as the myth has it, 'beauty' is by definition inert, timeless, and generic. That this hallucination is necessary and deliberate is evident in the way 'beauty' so directly contradicts women's real situation."
"Now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women."
"Women are mere 'beauties' in men's culture so that culture can be kept male. When women in culture show character, they are not desirable, as opposed to the desirable. A beautiful heroine is a contradiction in terms, since heroism is about individuality, interesting and ever changing, while 'beauty' is generic, boring, and inert. While culture works out moral dilemmas, 'beauty' is amoral: If a woman is born resembling an art object, it is an accident of nature, a fickle consensus of mass perception, a peculiar coincidence--but it is not a moral act. From the 'beauties' in male culture, women learn a bitter amoral lesson--that the moral lessons of their culture exclude them."
"The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see."
"How silly men were! Their part in procreation was so unimportant; it was the woman who carried the child through long months of uneasiness and bore it with pain, and yet a man because of his momentary connection made such preposterous claims. Why should that make any difference to him in his feelings towards the child?"
"Feminist politics is losing momentum because feminist movement has lost clear definitions. We have those definitions. Let's reclaim them. We can share the simple yet powerful message that feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression."
"Even though the advocates of feminism gladly use the term to refer to equality between man and woman, the common human brain is not capable of perceiving such equality beyond the gender bias of the very word. It'll be same as using Man to refer to both genders. Hence, the only words suitable in this scenario are Humanism and Human, rather than Feminism and Man."
"Single ladies, the only thing we need to be rescued from is the notion that we need to be rescued."
Explore more quotes by Virginia Woolf
"Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?"
"Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory."
"We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods."
"Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did not think of tears at first) which, without disturbing the firmness of her lips, made the air thick, rolled down her cheeks. She had perfect control of herself-Oh, yes!-in every other way."
"The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder."
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