Womens Rights Quotes

• 

  If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

  Florynce Kennedy

  Sex, Pregnancy, Men

  Quoted in Ms., Mar. 1973

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• Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Witty, Strong Women, Independent

  Motto of The Revolution (newspaper), 8 Jan. 1868

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• 

  If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.

  Abigail Adams

  Women, Memorable, Equality

  Letter to John Adams, 31 Mar. 1776 See Defoe 2

  81 Copy quote

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• Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people.

  Helen Keller

  People, Deafness, Blindness

  4 Copy quote

• Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings

  Cheris Kramarae

  Women, Bad Ass, Radical Feminism

  17 Copy quote

• I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

  Jane Austen

  Strength, Hate, Women

  33 Copy quote

• Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Men, World, Should

  Pearl S. Buck (1941). “Of Men and Women”

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• Champions keep playing until they get it right.

  Billie Jean King

  Inspirational, Sports, Running

  Twitter post from Jan 26, 2015

  117 Copy quote

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• Sex and race, because they are easy and visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour on which this system still depends.

  Gloria Steinem

  Sex, Race, Differences

  11 Copy quote

• Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can't take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can't take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right.

  Faye Wattleton

  Issues, Abortion, Fundamentals

  46 Copy quote

• The only reason that they say, 'Women and children first' is to test the strength of the lifeboats.

  Jean Kerr

  Children, Tests, Firsts

  10 Copy quote

• There could be a powerful international women's rights movement if only philanthropists would donate as much to real women as to paintings and sculptures of women.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Powerful, Real, Rights

  Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn (2009). “Half the Sky”, p.250, Vintage

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• When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Mother, Husband, Pain

  41 Copy quote

• It is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.

  Sarah Weddington

  Government, Abortion, Decision

  Sarah Ragle Weddington (1993). “A question of choice”, Penguin Group USA

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• I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Love, Real, Men

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1796). “A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects”, p.72

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• Decades from now, people will look back and wonder how societies could have acquiesced in a sex slave trade in the twenty-first century that is... bigger than the transatlantic slave trade was in the nineteenth. They will be perplexed that we shrugged as a lack of investment in maternal health caused half a million women to perish in childbirth each year.

  Sheryl WuDunn

  Sex, Years, People

  Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn (2010). “Half The Sky: How to Change the World”, p.243, Hachette UK

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• [In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

  Antonia Fraser

  Eye, Self, Order

  4 Copy quote

• A reader kindly pointed out to me recently that most of the quotes I include are by men. And it's true. Personally, I don't even consider whether the author is male or female, nor even care much who the author is - what's significant is the message. Of course, women are equally capable of great insights, however in our culture it's not so long ago that women could not even be published

  Charlotte Bronte

  Men, Long Ago, Males

  5 Copy quote

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women's rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women's rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about womens' rights into it, it would never pass. The bill passed anyway, though, much to the chagrin of a certain wiener from Virginia.

  Adam Selzer

  Rights, Virginia, Reform

  6 Copy quote

• I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Freedom, Women, Equality

  Charlotte Bronte (2004). “Jane Eyre”, p.66, Variocity

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• As to women, the Islamic faith has given women rights that are equal to or more than the rights given them in the Old Testament and the Bible.

  Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

  Islamic, Rights, Saudi Arabia

  18 Copy quote

• During the 19th-century struggle for womens rights in America, many saw a competition between rights for black people and those for women.

  Karen DeCrow

  Struggle, Rights, America

  4 Copy quote

• My mother was a great advocate of womens rights, a member of the League of Womens Voters and lifelong member of Planned Parenthood and an advocate of a womans rights in terms of reproductive issues. She was also a founding member of Common Cause in the state of Indiana.

  Kathryn Lasky

  Mother, Rights, Issues

  4 Copy quote