Betty Ford Quotes

The Equal Rights Amendment is a necessity of life…

All I did was ask for rights. I didn't attack anyone. I didn't harass anyone. I didn't oppose the system or the country or the authority. All I said is, 'Why can't I drive?'

We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for - it's ridiculous.

Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

I would definitely say I'm a feminist. To me, it just means being attentive and mindful. It's about equality and equal treatment. It feels like a gut instinct.

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

Secure to all … citizens a perfect equality of rights

I thought that we would wake up this morning and have the same rights as our husbands, grandsons and garbage men—but we are still begging to be let into our country's Constitution.

I believe the time has come for equal rights for everyone in this country, even for white people.

Differences between male and female should not serve as a subterfuge for denying the human and civil rights that belong to us all … Women, like their male counterparts, should be judged by the law as individuals, not as a class of inferior beings.

Unless the woman is liberated, there is no freedom in Iraqi land.

Equal and exact justice to every class of our citizens without distinction of color, sex or nationality.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities…. This nation … will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

… equal social dignity of all citizens irrespective of sex, race, language, religion, political opinions or social of personal status.

I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.

Women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.

I've always felt very strongly about human rights for blacks, women, and gays. Our Constitution is about equality for all - that's got to mean something to all of us.

Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.

Here in America, just as we see such incredible progress happening in one state, we see another state passing absolutely disgusting and oppressive laws against the rights of all sorts of people - transgender people, gay people, women.

I believe that all men and women are created equal, but it took our country until 1920 to acknowledge this for women. And then it took until 1964, the year before I was born, to outlaw discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And same-sex marriage became the law of the land in 2015.

The struggle for equality is really a struggle for democracy, and that's why it's a struggle for all the population.

We need to fight for the equal rights of citizens.

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less

The thing I want to see before I die is women achieving full equality in the world. I'm very passionate about injustice against women and there's too much of it in the world. In so many parts of the world, women are not regarded as worthy or equal to men. In parts of the world, women are bought and sold.