In reaction against the age-old slogan ‘woman is the weaker vessel’, or the still more offensive ‘woman is a divine creature’ we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that ‘a woman is as good as a man’, without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz ... that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person. Dorothy L Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. ibid.
Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are! ibid.
‘I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.’
Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.’ Jane Austen, Persuasion
But for the most part, women are not educated as they should be, I mean those of quality; oft their education is only to dance, sing, and fiddle, to write complimental letters, to read romances, to speak some languages that is not their native ... their parents take more care of their feet than their head, more of their words than their reason. Margaret Cavendish, 1624-1674, Duchess of Newcastle
It is humbling to reflect, that in those countries in which the fondness for the mere persons of women is carried to the highest excess, they are slaves; and that their moral and intellectual degradation increases in direct proportion to the adoration which is paid to mere external charms. Hannah More, 1745-1833
This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. 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 labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism. Gloria Steinem
Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life. Gloria Steinem
The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination of one sex to the other – is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement. John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women
What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing – the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation of others. ibid.
For over six decades now the fairer sex have put up with all manner of wrong-headed bloking bad. Of course they were different, more innocent times when boob and bum jokes weren’t just acceptable but the funniest thing in the world ever apparently. Welcome to an eye-poppingly gropy gallop through the worst chauvinistic excesses in TV history. Most Shocking Sexist TV of All Time: Ooh, You Are Awful: TV We Used to Love, Channel 5 2018
60s: The Saint: ‘Where domestic abuse is … all a bit of fun.’ ibid. TV critic
60s: Camberwick Green: ‘Poor Mrs Honeyman with her tampon baby.’ ibid.
60s: Dr in the House: ‘Kind of like a bad dream … various shades of chauvinist pig’ … ‘verbal gang rape’ … ibid.
BBC: Mainly for Men: ‘… We have a very exciting piece on shark fishing …’ ibid. presenter
Parkinson: ‘Especially telling sluttish eroticism.’ ibid. re guest Helen Mirren
Miss Yorkshire Television 1980: ‘She has brown hair and green eyes, and more important still she measures …’ ibid. presenter
1986 Champs-Elysees: ‘I said I want to fuck her’ [Whitney Houston] ibid. drunk Serg Gainsbourg
Bottle Boys: The jokes were terribly saucy; actually they were just terrible. ibid.
Judging a being by its physical appearance is the last major human prejudice, Wesley. Star Trek: The Next Generation s2e19: Manhunt, Worf of the Antedians
Joe Biden is openly sexist … Eight women so far have accused Biden of inappropriate sexual advances, touching and harassment … This guy is a sexual predator. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: Abby Martin on Biden: The Sexist the Media Ignores, Youtube 20.14, 2020
On March 23rd the Trump administration announced new discriminatory measures against transgender people by banning them from military service, which had just been granted under Obama … It’s just the latest attack on the trans community since the right wing took power. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: The Hidden War on Trans Rights, 2018
In 2016 alone, more than fifty bills were introduced in Congress targeting the lives of trans people. ibid.
In thirty states, well over half the country, one can be legally fired just on the basis of having a non-conforming gender identity. ibid.
One in five trans people report having been homeless. ibid.
I’ve been sexually assaulted, physically attacked, felt unsafe in my own house, and nearly killed myself because I’m transgender. Now I’m not saying that it’s the same struggle as racism. But what I will say is that if people are intentionally ignorant you can’t fight them with words. Sometimes you have to fight back. Or scream. And you know what? That’s life. Despite the lies you may have been told no-one won their rights by asking for them nicely. People fought for them. So ya I’m sorry if what I said may ‘offend’ a few white people, but I’m going to fucking say it anyways. Adam Snowflake
I am now positively against discrimination against women and positively in favour of positive discrimination in their favour. Discriminating discrimination of course. Yes, Minister s3e1: Equal Opportunities, BBC 1982
They remained second class citizens ... The injustice of sexual discrimination. Amanda Vickery, Suffragettes: Forever! The Story of Women and Power II, BBC 2015
Didn’t worry me because I was suffering from the discrimination and the humiliation of discrimination. Sylvia Woods, auto worker, interview Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists, 1983
You can now see the Female Eunuch the world over ... spreading herself whenever blue jeans and Coca-Cola may go. Wherever you see nail varnish, lipstick, brassieres, and high heels, the Eunuch has set up her camp. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch 1970, foreword to 21st anniversary edition
In order to approximate those shapes and attitudes which are considered normal and desirable, both sexes deform themselves, justifying the process by referring to the primary, genetic difference between the sexes. But of forty-eight chromosomes only one is different: on this difference we base a complete separation of male and female, pretending as it were that all forty-eight were different. ibid.
Women have very little idea of how much men hate them. ibid.
Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the carcasses of a subhumanly ugly mate? ibid.
I don’t think people should have boundaries put on them, by themselves or society or another gender, because it’s our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us. Hilary Swank
You are going to woman? Do not forget the whip! Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883
Woman was God’s second blunder. Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist 1888
You have to treat ’em [woman] like s*** [sic] Donald Trump cited Julie Baumgod, article New York magazine ‘Fighting Back: Trump Scrambles off the Canvas’