6 Quotes by Bonnie Burstow

Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.

The so-called “mental health system” served the interest of the patriarchy; that is, it pathologized the socially created problems that women face and reinforced the sex roles that the patriarchy prescribes.

With oppression, one group has the power to realize their choices and to name the world in order to change the world, while the other has these choices, these names, and this world imposed on them.

Man looks on woman from his vantage point and reduces her to a being that is not for-itself but for-him.

Women’s bodies are arranged, maimed, jeopardized, and tailored for the purposes of men-defined eroticism. [...] We dye our hair, smear our lips, paint our cheeks, stop oursweat, perfume our genitals, unkink our hair, and pluck our brows.

Sexploitation involves the partial, not the complete, reduction of woman. We must be sufficiently objectified to be a body that is for-men and at the same time sufficiently our-selves to have human grace and movement.