In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese political leader
I think women should have lots of opinions but not allowed to express them. Richard Harris, interview The Parkinson Show, BBC 1973
Of all the stages in a woman’s life, none is so dangerous as the period between her acknowledgment of a passion for a man, and the day set apart for her nuptials. Hugh Kelly, Memoirs of a Magdalen, 1767
I consider it my duty to look as good as I can, and with my example want to help German women become the true representatives of their race. Magda Goebbels, speech German Fashion Office, June 1933
A woman’s love for us increases
The less we love her, sooth to say –
She stoops, she falls, her struggling ceases;
Caught fast, she cannot get away. Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, 1833
Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities. Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731, An Essay Upon Projects, 1697
A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. Leonard Cohen
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. Karl Marx, Marx to Kugelmann in Hanover, cited Marxists online
And together they begin to make their voices heard. In October 1836 women from the Lowell Mills gather after work and organise. Their protest against wage cuts is one of the first strikes in US history. And they will win. The mill bosses backed down. A generation of young women go on to become teachers, writers and college graduates. Harriet Robinson would become a leading suffragette. America: The Story of the US: Division, History 2010
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman. Samuel Johnson
Women flourish as apprentices to trade. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: The Sixth Age: 1350 A.D. – 1530 A.D., Channel 4 2003
Such a woman was Deborah in the Book of Judges. She was a Judge, meaning not just one well versed in the law but a leader and one who is wise. Deborah is certainly a woman who commanded some respect. In the Bible she is identified as the fiery woman. She’s credited with turning around the fortunes of Israel by leading an army to take the land of Canaan. Bettany Hughes, The Bible, Channel 4 2010
Women and religion: their stories can unlock a secret history of the world. Bettany Hughes, Divine Women I: When God Was a Girl, BBC 2012
God is male ... If you travel back in time you’ll find a very different world. ibid.
The oldest religious building in the world: Gobekli Tepe. ibid.
It’s religion that forming human society itself. ibid.
Women are central to our relationship with the Divine. ibid.
The fertility of the earth was linked to women ... The goddess has got bigger ... She’s a kind of dominatrix. ibid.
Zeus overthrows his elders and becomes supreme. He is now top god. ibid.
Zeus was wiser than any other god ... or any woman. ibid.
Rome was found on an ideal of masculinity. ibid.
Hinduism emerged more than three thousand years ago. ibid.
A world where priestesses walked hand in hand with the divine. Bettany Hughes, Divine Women II: Handmaids of the Gods, BBC 2012
Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, enchantress. ibid.
Her [Sapho] sacred poetry opens up a sensual remarkable world. ibid.
Priestesses enjoyed high status. ibid.
Rome also permitted the influence of women in the religious sphere. ibid.
There were six priestesses known as the Vestal Virgins. ibid.
The followers of Christ were told they were living in the end of days. ibid.
Paul was wrong about the Apocalypse: the world didn’t end. ibid.
Theodora was born in 6th century A.D. in the great city of Constantinople. Bettany Hughes, Divine Women III: War of the Word
A woman was the first convert of Islam. ibid.
The part played by female Muslim scholars has been ignored. ibid.
Qianling, China: One woman would secure her place as its supreme ruler ... Wu Zetian... She deserves to be a household name. ibid.
Her name was Hilda and she was the niece of an Anglo Saxon king ... She championed learning for ordinary people. ibid.
Oxford: It wasn’t until 1920 that a woman could be legally awarded a university degree. I’m sure Hilda would have been horrified. ibid.
The female of the species and religion have always been inseparable. ibid.
And you’d find women – articulate, intelligent and impassioned. And among those women the most striking of all was Mary Wollstonecraft. She was the Spirit of the Times. Mary Wollstonecraft was a one-woman revolution. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s3e1: Forces of Nature, BBC 2002
The reason she [Wollstonecraft] said why women were so slighted was that from the time they were little girls their entire being was designed with the sole and sovereign aim of pleasing men. She had no time for Rousseau’s idea that women by their very nature could be no more than wives and mothers ... She is rightly remembered as the founder of modern feminism. ibid.
Mary Seacole was West-Indian ... When Britain joined the Crimean War in 1854 she tried to volunteer her services at the front ... She was turned down by the likes of Nurse Nightingale ... Mary Seacole built her British hotel right on the front line ... Mortars would whizz past the big old woman trundling the front lines. After the war was over the soldiers feted her at a charity gala. She had become briefly an eminent Victorian. ibid.
In 1860 Elizabeth Garrett enrolled as a surgical nurse at Middlesex Hospital but her sights were set higher ... She was also cutting up body parts in her bedroom. This improvised education made her bold enough to take part in the hospital’s medical (not nursing) exam. And when the time came to publish the results, one E Garret had come top. Ordered to keep the outrage secret she went public instead. Nine years later the French gave her an MD. ibid.
Searching round for a woman’s cause Annie [Besant] found one in the teenage match-girls who worked amidst phosphorous fumes for Bryant and May in East London. They were paid just between four and ten shillings a week, and if they had dirty feet or an untidy bench they were fined, taking more money out of their already pathetic wages. Most horrifying of all, the girls ran the constant risk of contracting the hideously disfiguring Phossy Jaw, since Bryant and May persisted in the use of phosphorous which other match companies had given up. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Victoria and Her Sisters
The owners of Bryant and May threatened the girls with instant dismissal if they didn’t sign a document repudiating the article [White Slavery in London] and the journalists ... A strike committee was formed ... George Bernard Shaw volunteered as the cashier of the strike fund ... Annie Besant and the girls were triumphant. ibid.
I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of Women’s Rights, with all its attendant horrors on which our poor feeble sex is bent. Forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety ... Were women to unsex themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection. Queen Victoria
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. Robert Heinlein
I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby