Canadian Feminist Pioneer Quotes

Never complain, never explain, get the thing done and let them howl. ~ Nellie L. McClung

As a feminist I feel immediately guilty because everyone is trying to encourage girls into STEM subjects now, but to be honest I'm not dedicated enough to the Vagenda to force myself to become a computer programmer. ~ Laura Steven

With that said, don't be trifling about being a feminist. It really infuriates me when high-profile people in your position self-identity as feminists just because it's trendy at the moment and then don't do any of the, you know, actual work of trying to make things equal for everybody. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in order to create a society that takes women as seriously as the men. The type that encourages us to not define ourselves by who we go to bed with at night, but by who and what we see reflected back at us in the mirror in the morning. The type that recognizes that women are not a monolith and that they have wildly different experiences informed by their race and/or sexuality. Be that beacon of light that we can look toward. Be the feminist who will help normalize the idea of Feminism for society. Be the feminist everyone needs. No presh. 3C. ~ Phoebe Robinson

Amos and I introduced the idea of a conjunction fallacy, which people commit when they judge a conjunction of two events (here, bank teller and feminist) to be more probable than one of the events (bank teller) in a direct comparison. ~ Daniel Kahneman

I never want to lose my Canadian-ness ... and when I say Canadian-ness, I mean down-to-earth. I like being able to not take myself seriously and to not feel entitled. ~ Cobie Smulders

[Stephen] Harper had said he would use all legal means, and what [John] Baird suggested was an option the prome minister was considering. If the governor general had refused his request, he could have replaced her with a more compliant one, making the case to the Queen that the people of Canada were opposed in great numbers to a coalition replacing his government. ~ Lawrence Martin

As for the river, it just kept moving,as river do
as rivers do. Under the logs, the body of the young Canadian moved with the river, which jostled him to and fro
to and fro. If, at this moment in time Twisted River also appeared restless, even impatient, maybe the river itself wanted the boy's body to move on, too, move on, too. ~ John Irving

Quote from Louise Penny a Canadian author. Wrote "How The Light Gets In" from an interview.
"Having started as a voracious reader (and I still am), I know that reading is as creative as writing. The writer suggests, creates a character, a setting, an atmosphere. But it's the reader who brings it alive. Walks with the characters, sees the world, smells the wood smoke, tastes the café au lait and feels the biting cold on the tender cheek ~ Louise Penny

I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing. ~ Gloria Steinem

There's no need to apologise, Justine,' he said tautly. 'No need at all.'
'Good, because I didn't mean to. It's a habit with females, that's all, saying sorry all the time when there's absolutely no need. . . ~ Miranda Lee

Let's take this figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people's joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way? ~ Sara Ahmed

Horror fans are a particular breed. They analyze films with such detail and expertise that I am reminded of the Canadian literary critic Northrup Frye, who approached literature with similar archetypal analysis. ~ Roger Ebert

Yes, an old-fashioned feminist "consciousness-raising" still has enormous value. When the subject turns to abortion, cosmetic intervention, birth, motherhood, sex, love, work, misogyny, fear, or just how you feel in your own skin, women still won't often tell the truth to each other unless they are very, very drunk. ~ Caitlin Moran

I have no problem with saying I am a socialist or with saying I'm a feminist. That's how I was when I was 15, and you know, I haven't grown out of it and probably never will. ~ Cherie Blair

Christ has meant everything to our marriage. It was my commitment to Christ and the words from my grandmother that made me stick with Phil [Robertson] when there wasn't much to hold on to. Phil's love for the outdoors, his pioneer spirit, and his quest for adventure has not changed. But his heart has been turned inside out. He's a new man in every way that involves relationships. ~ Kay Robertson

Lads, I forgot to tell you. Naya don't like good music because she's a feminist.'
'What's a feminist?' Tyse asks.
'It's like a chick who blames all of her mental problems on dudes,' Jimmy explains. 'But not even on specific dudes, just, like, the idea of dudes. It's fucked up. And it's ironic, cos feminists usually look like dudes themselves.'
'But Naya doesn't look like a dude.'
'Aww, thanks Tyse,' Naya says. 'James has given you a horribly inaccurate definition of a feminist, but he has ably demonstrated why we exist. Unfortunately, he's not the only entitled male with no respect for women. ~ Brendan Lawley

The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality. ~ Andrea Dworkin

When women internalized the idea that describing their own woe was synonymous with developing a critical political consciousness, the progress of the feminist movement was stalled. ~ Bell Hooks

The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent to much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women. ~ Elizabeth Blackwell

Unfortunately, every era needs to demonize feminist. The Feminazi was the 1990s version. The term was coined by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to describe women who support abortion rights. It was taken up by ultra-right-wing conservatives everywhere and came to refer feminists in general. (…) A Feminazi is a strident, controlling bitch who –Oh, horrible crime!– insists on equal right for women. She doesn't agree with the right-wing construct that the man is the ruler of the home. Her goal in life is to turn men into whimpering slaves who take care of the kids and share the housecleaning, something men must resist at all costs or American society will crumple even more. The Guerrilla Girls are still waiting for the day when everyone will think of the Feminist as a positive stereotype. Don't let us wait too long. ~ Guerrilla Girls

I always had a dissociative disorder. But I healed from it over the course of 14 years of big-time therapy. But, you know, I mean, everybody's kind of loony now. So I was kind of a pioneer in the mental illness thing, too. ~ Roseanne Barr

I'm not at all an active feminist. On the contrary, I'm a bourgeois. I love family life, I love doing the same thing every day. ~ Carla Bruni

When I learnt, however, that in 1911 there had been twenty-one regular feminist periodicals in Britain, that there was a feminist book shop, a woman's press, and a woman's bank run by and for women, I could no longer accept that the reason I knew almost nothing about women of the past was because there were so few of them, and they had done so little. ~ Dale Spender

The egg-man looks over my shoulder. "Those wings aren't the only proof of your heritage. You're a traitor, sending us all up river so you could save your petty mortal half. You're nothing short of a - "
"Benedict," I interrupt between clenched teeth.
Hubert's eyes narrow - curious and hate-filled.
"Eggs Benedict." I point to a picture on the menu. "Poached eggs. Canadian bacon. Hollandaise sauce and an English muffin. And I'd like a side of fruit." ~ A.G. Howard

I'm one of the people who was a pioneer in encouraging musicians, early in the game, to get interested in technology, and now all the musicians are getting into it. ~ Herbie Hancock

There is danger in speaking so generally about "liberalism," a danger that has often plagued feminist debates. "Liberalism" is not a single position but a family of positions; Kantian liberalism is profoundly different from classical Utilitarian liberalism, and both of these from the Utilitarianism currently dominant in neoclassical economics. ~ Martha C. Nussbaum

First, it is a commitment to particularism, to giving priority to the specificity of particulars, not to abstractions and generalities that divert our attention away from concrete realities. Idealizations tend to be partial and distorting, obscuring the heterogeneity and complexity of actual experiences and concrete practices, which is why they do not provide an adequate standpoint for the diagnosis of social problems and injustices. ~ Jose Medina

I've got everything ready to go," I said once he was finally awake and dressed.
All the tenderness and vulnerability was gone from his face when he said, "Go where?"
"America?"
His eyes narrowed. "This is America."
"This is Canada."
"Which is in North America."
Silly Canadians wanting be part of the Cool Kids Club. ~ Tammy Blackwell

...women, brave as stars at dawn ~ Edwidge Danticat

I'm also alternative because of Canada - there's something romantic about being Canadian. We're a relatively unpopulated, somewhat civilized, and clean and resourceful country. I always push the fact that I'm Canadian. ~ K.d. Lang

Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we're slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we're not told growing up, and it's our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it. ~ Beth Ditto

On sentry duty with Hazel, he would try to take his mind off it. He loved spending time with her. He asked her about growing up in New Orleans, but she got edgy at his questions, so they made small talk instead. Just for fun, they tried to speak French to each other. Hazel had some Creole blood on her mother's side. Frank had taken French in school. Neither of them was very fluent, and Louisiana French was so different from Canadian French it was almost impossible to converse. When Frank asked Hazel how her beef was feeling today, and she replied that his shoe was green, they decided to give up. Then Percy Jackson had arrived. Sure, Frank had seen kids fight monsters before. He'd fought plenty of them himself on his journey from Vancouver. But he'd never seen gorgons. He'd never seen a goddess in person. And the way Percy had controlled the Little Tiber - wow. Frank wished he had powers like that. ~ Rick Riordan

Betty Snyder, who, under her married name, Betty Holberton, went on to become a pioneer programmer who helped develop the COBOL and Fortran languages, ~ Walter Isaacson

The movement to join Washington had a substantial following in the 1850s, centred in Montreal...It faced considerable resistance, though - in part because the United States was having one of its periodic convulsions of nativist politics and a furious debate over the slave trade. In fact, the U.S.-annexation movement would receive its final rebuff not from colonial-minded Canadians but from the Confederate states, who feared that the addition of the British North American colonies to the 31 states would tip the political balance of power away from slavery. ~ Doug Saunders

Our government is focused on creating jobs, growth and long-term prosperity and on creating the right conditions for Canadian businesses. ~ Jakaya Kikwete

If any of us had heard the word "feminist" we would have thought it meant a girl who wore too much makeup, but we were, without knowing it, feminists ourselves, bound together by the freemasonry that exists among intelligent women who know they are intelligent. It is the only kind of female bonding that works, which is why most men do not like intelligent women. They don't mind one female brain if they can enjoy it privately; it's the idea of two or more on the loose that upsets them. The girls in the college-bound group might not have been friends in every case
Sharon Cohen and I gave each other willies
but our instincts told us that we had the same enemies. ~ Florence King

To the Pilgrim Mothers, who not only had their full share of the hardships and privations of pioneer life but also had the Pilgrim Fathers to endure. ~ Fanny Fern

You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal - it just feels stifling. ~ Jessica Valenti

Every Canadian has a complicated relationship with the United States, whereas Americans think of Canada as the place where the weather comes from. ~ Margaret Atwood

The boy will grow older, and over time there will be other songs – not many – ten or maybe twenty in a lifespan, that stand apart from the rest of the music he will discover. He will realise as he grows older still, and crosses the Canadian border and drives down into Seattle, that not only are these songs holy or sacred, they are hiding songs – what the Aztec Indians call carrion songs – that deal exclusively in darkness, obfuscation, concealment and secrecy. He will realize that, for him, the purpose of these songs has been to shut off the sun, to draw a long shadow down and protect him from the corrosive glare of the world. ~ Nick Cave

Full disclosure: I went to university as an eager young feminist for many reasons - to get away from my parents, to soak up literature and knowledge, to cease being a child, to expand my mind and my world. ~ Janine Di Giovanni

When Eve ate the apple her knowledge increased. But God liked dumb women so Paradise ceased. Gwen Goodnight. Her Work. ~ Jennifer Crusie

I think one of the primary reasons young women don't identify as feminist is because they don't know any feminists and/or don't really have an accurate or comprehensive understanding of what it is - by proudly identifying as a feminist. ~ Julie Zeilinger

I realize my life here is much richer than I ever could have imagined. [Why one Canadian immigrant to Italy stays] ~ Ivanka Di Felice

The Canadian-Australian mathematician Norman Wildberger has posted an essay arguing that real numbers are a joke. ~ Max Tegmark

Spring had come once more to Green Gables-the beautiful, capricious Canadian spring, lingering along through April and may in a succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles of resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover's Lane were red-budded and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad's Bubble. Away in the barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane's place, the mayflowers blossomed out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil. ~ L.M. Montgomery