Equal Rights For Women Quotes

You people are right - I am for equal rights for women. I am for that, female jobs such as feeding husband and children be considered as valuable as male jobs. ~ Janusz Korwin-Mikke

When one demands equal rights for women, one needs to assess in which areas women can work better than men, in which they can work like men, and in which they need protection and affirmative action for when they cannot work like men. ~ Pervez Musharraf

I don't believe that military intervention is always the right approach. What we need is a comprehensive strategy, one that advances democratization, economic reforms and equal rights for women. ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

The examples of female success stories are important on the global scale, as they help to disseminate the idea of gender equality and to spread the roots for the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and democratic values among different cultures, societies and traditions. ~ Dalia Grybauskaite

Amma … I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I'm a feminist too." Amma stared at her, her eyes wide in horror. She didn't notice when the red floral dupatta of her salwar kameez slipped off one shoulder. "Sweetie! Feminists don't get married. Stop that nonsense." Sweetie did laugh then, openly. "Amma, what the heck are you talking about? Feminists can do whatever they want. They just want equal rights for women. ~ Sandhya Menon

To every woman who gave birth, to every citizen and taxpayer, it's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women of the United States of America! ~ Patricia Arquette

I later became more interested in equal rights for women in the work place because of what was happening at IBM. One of the women at Remington Rand had previously been a system service girl for IBM during the war. After a system was installed, a system service girl would go out and show the users how it worked. She was the liaison between the users and the computer company. She was married and had been fired to make room for a returning veteran. When the war ended, IBM rehired all of its former employees who had left to join the military, then fired all of the married women with jobs that could be filled by men. ~ Jean Jennings Bartik

Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing 'M*A*S*H'; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling. ~ Sanjeev Bhaskar

My mom worked tirelessly on getting equal rights for women. ~ Casey Wilson

A woman's best protection is a little money of her own. ~ Clare Boothe Luce

But we can't ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people from abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women's freedom of choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

While I can make no claim for having introduced the term "rugged individualism," I should be proud to have invented it. It has been used by American leaders for over a half-century in eulogy of those God-fearing men and women of honesty whose stamina and character and fearless assertion of rights led them to make their own way in life. ~ Herbert Hoover

[Queen Victoria had been denouncing the Women's Rights movement] ... And after chloroform was introduced to ease the pains of childbirth, she demanded that it be used on her. Religious and medical conservatives were shocked. They said God had decreed that women must suffer in childbirth as atonement for the sins of Eve. But queen Victoria wouldn't accept this particular anti-woman's-rights dictum. She became one of the first women to use anesthesia during childbirth , and knighted Dr. James Simpson, the Scottish physician who developed this use of chloroform, though he was excommunicated by his church for doing so. ~ Miriam Gurko

We really have to be willing to find out who we are instead of rebelling for the equal rights that we've been denied, that we do deserve. ~ Andrew Cohen

Sometimes it leads me even to hesitate whether I am strictly correct in my idea that all men are born to equal rights, for their conduct seems to me to contravene the doctrine. ~ Benjamin F. Wade

There are still countries that deny women basic civil rights. Worldwide, about 4.4 million women and 1 girls are trapped in the sex trade. In places like Afghanistan and Sudan, girls receive little or no education, wives are treated as the property of their husbands, and women who are raped are routinely cast out of their homes for disgracing their families. Some rape victims are even sent to jail for committing a "moral crime."2 We are centuries ahead of the unacceptable treatment of women in these countries. But knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Like probably a lot of people, I came away from watching films like 'Miss Representation' and 'Half the Sky' with the realization that the battle for women's rights is not over, especially not globally, and that the moral imperative of our century is to achieve full rights for everyone regardless of gender. ~ Adora Svitak

I think it's kind of awkward when everyone knows you're gay but you don't say it. I had been thinking about coming out for almost a year before I did. I thought about it seriously on the plane ride home from the World Cup, while I was casually talking to my friend Lori Lindsey. She said, "Dude, you should just come out." She was right. Everyone in my life already knew. If you want to stand up and fight for equal rights but then won't even stand up for yourself and say "I'm gay" - that just started to feel weird. ~ Megan Rapinoe

As a sign of utmost gratitude for his contributions to the Indian society in restoring equal rights of the citizens, I confer him (B.R. Ambedkar) the title "Martin Luther King Jr. of India. ~ Abhijit Naskar

When I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of their capacity for the most herculean undertakings. ~ Julia Ward Howe

Being worshiped (for most women) is preferable to being defiled, and being looked up to is better than being walked on. It is hard for women to refuse the worship of what otherwise is despised: being female. Woman's special moral nature has sometimes been used to plead her case: being moral, she will be able to upgrade the morality of the nation if she has the rights of citizenship, the tone of the marketplace if she is employed, the quality of the church if she officiates, the humanism of government if she is in it; being moral, she will be on the side of good. It has also been argued, more loudly and more often, that her moral nature must not be contaminated by vulgar responsibilities; that she has a special moral role to play in making the nation and the world good - she must be in her person the example of good that will civilize and educate men and make the nation moral. One cannot do what men do - not in government, not in the family, not even in religion, not anywhere - and be an example of good. ~ Andrea Dworkin

We are not statistics. We are the people from whom you took this land by force and blood and lies. We are the people to whom you promised to pay, in recompense for all this vast continent you stole, some small pitiful pittance to assure at least our bare survival. And we are the people from whom you now snatch away even that pittance, abandoning us and your own honor without a qualm, even launching military attacks on our women and children and Elders, and targeting - illegally even by your own self-serving laws - those of us, our remaining warriors, who would dare to stand up and try to defend them. You practice crimes against humanity at the same time that you piously speak to the rest of the world of human rights!

America, when will you live up to your own principles? ~ Leonard Peltier

When women talk about "privacy" they mean abortion rights, and the millions of words feminists have written about "a room of one'sown" refer to psychological space, rarely to physical solitude. For most women being alone is tantamount to being deserted. ~ Florence King

I wish I could have known Barbara Bodichon
and her whole vibrant circle of smart, fearless women friends. I'd like to gather them all around the dinner table, along with a few smart, fearless friends of my own. We'd open a bottle of wine and sit back to to hear their stories
marveling at all the things that have changed, and commiserating about all the things that haven't. And then we'd tell them thank you. We'd tell them that we never take for granted the rights they fought so hard for. And that we hope we, too, can make the world just a little better for the ones who follow after. ~ Terri Windling

The pygmies, for example, or the Mindoro of the Philippines, do not want equal rights – they just want to be left alone. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

To Black women, the issue is not whether white women are more or less racist than white men, but that they are racist. If women committed to feminist revolution, be they Black or white, are to achieve any understanding of the charged connections between white women and Black women, we must first be willing to examine woman's relationship to society, to race, and to American culture - as it is, and not as we would ideally have it be. That means confronting the reality of white female racism. Sexist discrimination has prevented white women from assuming the dominant role in the perpetuation of white racial imperialism, but it has not prevented white women from absorbing, supporting, and advocating racist ideology or acting individually as racist oppressors in various spheres of American life. Every women's movement in America, from its earliest origin to the present day, has been built on a racist foundation, a fact which in no way invalidates feminism as a political ideology. The racial apartheid social structure that characterized 19th and early 20th century American life was mirrored in the women's rights movement. The first white women's rights advocates were never seeking social equality for all women. They were seeking social equality for white women. ~ Bell Hooks

[A] woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence. ~ Frederick Douglass

The timing of this sudden interest in the plight of Iraqi women cannot be overemphasized. For decades, many Iraqi women activists in the US and UK had tried to raise awareness about the systematic abuse of human and women's rights under Saddam Hussein, the atrocities linked to the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, and the impact of economic sanctions on women and families ... 'We wrote so many letters and we organized many events ... They did not want to know. They were just not interested. It was only in the run-up to the [2003] invasion that the governments started to care about the suffering of Iraqi women. ~ Nadje Al-Ali

Ah, my dear friend Hassim, seems our paths cross once again, how fortunate for this humble Sheik." As Abdullah spoke in his usual self deprecating manner I realized that a favor was on the tip of his tongue and that I was about to be offered a quid-pro-quo.

We were sitting crossed legged on large fat pillows with gold fringe. The tent was large with partitions dividing living, sleeping and cooking space. It was made from heavy cotton canvas erected on thick poles in the center giving the structure a peaked circus tent appearance. The women serving us were young, wearing harem pants low on their hips with cropped gauze tops made from sheer silk. Their exposed midriffs were flat and toned, their belly buttons were decorated in precious stones that glittered in the torch light as they moved. They were bare footed with stacks of gold ankle bracelets making the only sound we heard as they kept our glasses filled with fresh sweet tea and our communal serving trays piled high with dates and sugar incrusted sweets of undetermined origin.

Abdullah took no notice of these women, his nonchalance intrigued me as I was obviously having trouble keeping my mind focused on the discussion at hand, this was all part of the Arab way, when it came to negotiation they had no peers.

"So my dear friend, tell me, the region is on fire is there a solution?"

I spoke in a deliberate and flat tone, little emotion just concern, one friend to another.

Nick Hahn

The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex, was to be found in the families of the educated class and in occasional intercourse with the learned. ~ Abigail Adams

Men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

I work for the Global Fund for Women, an organization that is actively supporting women's rights groups in 160 countries around the world. ~ Kavita Ramdas

We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity and new opportunities for expanded ownership, because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Women's fight for equal rights is essentially a humanist and peaceful struggle for true democracy, and a higher form of civilization. ~ Leyla Zana

Under the Iranian code, the worth of a woman's life equals half of a man's, a point that often leads to grotesque legal judgments that effectively punish the victims. In this instance, the judge ruled that the 'blood money' for the two men was worth more than the life of the murdered nine-year-old girl, and he demanded that her family come up with thousands of dollars to finance their executions. ~ Shirin Ebadi

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America ~ Paul Robeson

At the same time we see the phenomenon of successful women adopting the standards of men with a vengeance. Will women's march to power ascendancy, won against all odds, mean that they too will choose to flaunt their preferences for red meat, animal skin, sport hunting, and even bullfighting? As women are swelling the ranks of biomedical science, many have adopted the practice of animal experimentation. Will animal exploitation become the ultimate symbol of equality with the white male? ~ Maria Comninou

American Evangelicals are fond of quoting the Declaration of Independence when it insists, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Curiously, not as much fondness is found for quoting what comes later in the very same sentence: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. ~ Gordon Runyan

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "market" put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL cost of production? ~ Arundhati Roy

It's the mark of a backward society - or a society moving backward - when decisions are made for women by men. ~ Melinda Gates

Men did care enough to struggle with our demands. And some cared enough to convert to feminist thinking and to change. But only a very, very few loved us – loved us all the way. And that meant respecting our sexual rights. To this day I believe that feminist debate about love and sexuality ended precisely because straight women did not want to face the reality that it was highly unlikely in patriarchal society that a majority of men would wholeheartedly embrace women's right to say no in the bedroom. Since the vast majority of heterosexual women, even those involved in radical feminist movement, were not willing to say no when they did not want to perform sexually for the fear of upsetting or alienating their mate, no significant group of men ever had to rise to the occasion. While it became more acceptable to say no now and then, it was not acceptable to say no for any significant amount of time. An individual woman in a primary relationship with a man could not say no, because she feared there was always another woman in the background who could take her place, a woman who would never say no. ~ Bell Hooks

Our roots run deep and are strong to the core.
I am proud to see women taking a stand. Many times, we have been fallen warriors; there have been plenty of times we have been wounded warriors, but we are still standing. We are standing up for our rights. We are standing up for a cause. We are standing up for movements that empower us to be heard, respected and appreciated!
We are bold!
We are courageous!
We are thankful!
We are grateful!
We are blessed! ~ Charlena E. Jackson

It kept coming back to joy-- how could I live a life filled with it? And always, the answer that came back to me was "Write."

... I am here because of the indigenous people of this country, because of the enslaved people who were here before me, the young people of the civil rights movements who fought hard to get me to this moment.

My biggest responsibility is to recognize that I am part of the continuum, that I didn't just appear and start writing stuff down. I'm writing stuff down because Andre Lorde wrote stuff down, because James Baldwin wrote stuff down... and all the people who came before me -- set the stage for my work. I have to keep all of that in my heart as I move through the world, not only for the deep respect I have for them, but also for my own strength.

So my advice to other young writers: Read widely. Study other writers. Be thoughtful, Then go out and do the work of changing the form, finding your own voice, and saying what you need to say. Be fearless. And care.

The fact that young people continue to rise brings me such joy. They are where I look to find my hope.

-- "Continue to Rise: A Conversation with Jacqueline Woodson ~ Glory Edim

It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men. ~ Desmond Tutu

Wealthy queers support initiatives that lock up and murder poor queers, trans* people, and sex workers. Women in positions of power continue to defend and sometimes initiate the vicious assault on abortion and reproductive rights, and then off-load reproductive labor onto the shoulders of care workers, who are predominantly women of color whose employment is often directly tied to their citizenship status. The politics of "leaning in" for a small layer of wealthy women has dovetailed with budget cuts and health care rollbacks that have left poor women at the mercy of misogynist, increasingly lethal anti-reproductive-rights legislation, and left poor, queer and trans* people without access to necessary medical resources like hormones or AIDS medication.

Original pamphlet: Who is Oakland. April 2012.
Quoted in: Dangerous Allies. Taking Sides. ~ Tipu's Tiger

But as a Christian, let me say Merry Christmas on a national holiday called Christmas and you'd think Satan incarnate himself just showed up. I'm sorry that is a bad example because if Satan did show up, he would get more respect than Christians, Jews, Tea Partiers, patriots and conservatives. Thus all the forenamed groups, and any like them, must stand and fight for their equal rights that are disappearing faster than San Antonio fans after game seven of the NBA championship in Miami. ~ Ken Hutcherson

Why is it taken for granted that women should earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. ~ Pope Francis

When I started giving talks about women's history, one of the things that bothered me was the tendency to say, 'Well, everybody was totally oppressed and suddenly in 1964 we rose up, got our freedom, and here we are.' It dismisses the women who fought for rights for several hundred years of our history up to that point. ~ Gail Collins

There are few talents so richly rewarded - especially in politics and the media - as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights. ~ Thomas Sowell

I am not your dog that you whistle for; I'm not a stray animal you call over, and I am not, I never have been, nor will I ever be, your "baby"! ~ Joy Jennings

Imagine a day when all plants and trees go on a strike, a bandh just for a day. All of us will die for want of oxygen." Reading this, I was instantly reminded of Bolivia's recent legislation (in December 2010) to grant all nature equal rights as humans. Justice William O. Douglas, writing against a 1972 decision by the United States Supreme Court, wrote, "Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation ... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life ... The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled. ~ Anonymous

We teach our girls how not to get raped with a sense of doom, a sense that we are fighting a losing battle. When I was writing this novel, friend after friend came to me telling me of something that had happened to them. A hand up their skirt, a boy who wouldn't take no for an answer, a night where they were too drunk to give consent but they think it was taken from them anyway. We shared these stories with one another and it was as if we were discussing some essential part of being a woman, like period cramps or contraceptives. Every woman or girl who told me these stories had one thing in common: shame. 'I was drunk . . . I brought him back to my house . . . I fell asleep at that party . . . I froze and I didn't tell him to stop . . .' My fault. My fault. My fault. When I asked these women if they had reported what had happened to the police, only one out of twenty women said yes. The others looked at me and said, 'No. How could I have proved it? Who would have believed me?' And I didn't have any answer for that. ~ Louise O'Neill

Men are born privileged in the scale of things - I'm generalizing, but it's true. Women have to define themselves in the eyes of men. They have to fight for their rights, especially in a society that will pretend that there is no fight or no battle, that it's a cliche, that feminists are reactionary, all these things. ~ Xavier Dolan