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I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy. I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women. But I must say, that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Mar. 18, 1864
Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.
SUE MONK KIDD, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
- Because a woman brought death
- a bright Maiden overcame it,
- and so the highest blessing
- in all of creation
- lies in the form of a woman,
- since God has become man
- in a sweet and blessed Virgin.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, "Quia ergo femina"
- I know the woman has no soul, I know
- The woman has no possibilities
- Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is
- The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so.
- It is her flesh that I adore; I go
- Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss.
- I know she cannot love: it is not this
- My vanquished heart implores in overthrow.
- Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone,
- Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent
- Music, divinest human harmony;
- Her body now a silent instrument,
- That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me
- The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.
ARTHUR SYMONS, "Idealism"
A woman in Deep Sleep is one who goes about in an unconscious state. She seems unaware or unfazed by the truth of her own female life, the truth about women in general, the way women and the feminine have been wounded, devalued, and limited within culture, churches, and families. She cannot see the wound or feel the pain. She has never acknowledged, much less confronted, sexism within the church, biblical interpretations, or Christian doctrine. Okay, so women have been largely missing from positions of church power, we've been silenced and relegated to positions of subordination by biblical interpretations and doctrine, and God has been represented to us as exclusively male. So what? The woman in Deep Sleep is oblivious to the psychological and spiritual impact this has had on her. Or maybe she has some awareness of it all but keeps it sequestered nicely in her head, rarely allowing it to move down into her heart or into the politics of her spirituality.
SUE MONK KIDD, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
- For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
- And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
- The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
- Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
- Then call them not the authors of their ill,
- No more than wax shall be accounted evil
- Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Rape of Lucrece
A good woman’s arms round a man’s neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.
JEROME K. JEROME, "A Charming Woman"
- Horns to bulls wise Nature lends;
- Horses she with hoofs defends;
- Hares with nimble feet relieves;
- Dreadful teeth to lions gives;
- Fishes learn through streams to slide;
- Birds through yielding air to glide;
- Men with courage she supplies;
- But to women these denies.
- What then gives she? Beauty, this
- Both their arms and armour is:
- She, that can this weapon use,
- Fire and sword with ease subdues.
Two women can't share a house comfortably, no matter how fond they might be of each other. It's got to be one woman's kitchen.
NORA ROBERTS, Blue Smoke
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