362 Quotes About Patriarchy

I’m trying to hold back my emotions, but I can feel my face contorting. That strange heat moving to my cheeks. I always thought it was magic moving through me, but now I know it to be rage.

Because women don't have to be men's equals to be considered contenders; they have to be better. That's the lie of it all. You have to be better to prove yourself worthy of being equal.

The vagina is obliterated from the imagery of femininity in the same way that the signs of independence and vigor in the rest of her body are suppressed.

[Dr. Johnson thought that] Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

We have survived witch trials and honour killings, rapes and acid attacks. We have died for our right to exist, and then stood right back up for our right to vote. We are warriors and our own heroes, the very least we deserve is each other’s love.

While we avoid taking credit for success, women leap at the opportunity to take responsibility for failure. Men tend to externalize the reasons for their failure, putting it off on something or someone else. Not so women, who absorb blame as if they were born to be societys doormats. (Some women like to speak of their willingness to take blame as if it were a form of altruism. It isn't. Women take the blame because they find it scary to confront those who are actually culpable of wrongdoing.)

The Men who cannot deny us to be rational creatures, wou'd have us justify their irrational opinion and treatment of us, by descending to a mean compliance with their irrational Expectations. But I hope, while Women have any spirit left, they will exert it all, in shewing how worthy they are of better usage, by not submitting tamely to such misplaced arrogance.

Some gender norms are healthy, some are unhealthy - you must wake up from the patriarchal sleep to recognize which is which.

Mistress?” the leader would say. “Do not tell me that such a beauty as yourself dwells all alone?”“Oh, yes,” I would answer. “Quite alone.”He would smile. He could not help it. There was never any fear in him. Why should there be? He had already noted for himself that there was no man’s cloak hanging by the door, no hunter’s bow, no shepherd’s staff. No sign of brothers or fathers or sons, no vengeance that would follow after. If I were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to live alone.