Bette Davis Quotes
I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman.
Hadleigh, Boze. Bette Davis Speaks. Macmillan, 1996.
Her plane and she were never found.
Marcus Porcius Cato. This quotation has had two different interpretations over time. One was that women if they received equality of treatment and voting would have an advantage for they also had their traditional “feminine wiles” and their sexuality, hence would dominate men. The second was a also a warning but based on the fact that women were superior in many ways, and given an equal chance, would excel men. The later interpretation is argued by some who point to the 2011 American data that shows more females than males graduating from high school and college, and females outnumber males in medical, law and several other professional schools. With the exception of a few Roman men, most heeded Cato’s warning and never took a chance on female equality.
This quotation is a good example of the conflation (confusing) of different issues. West’s is concerned that men are becoming subservient to women. He uses the word “neutering”—men are being behaviorally castrated. There are men who see power as a zero sum game. If one person gains it, someone else must be losing it. Since more and more women are reaching equality and therefore gaining more power over their own and their family life, they reason that somehow the men must be losing their power. In a sense, from the era where men had control of all family money even if earned by the wife, equality has meant less power for men. When men could legally beat (chastise) their wives, they in some sense had more power and some see it as more masculinity. However, most secure men do not feel this way. They do not have to dominate others to feel masculine. Then West refers to Planned Parenthood and Code Pink organizations. The latter is a very left wing women’s’ peace organization that does not deal much with the other issues between men and women. And Planned Parenthood is America’s oldest main line family planning organization. West was talking to a right wing audience and is of that wing himself. They oppose code pink for their war stand; they oppose Planned Parenthood because they support the right of a woman to choose abortion and birth control devices if she wishes. So somehow, peace now, abortion / birth control have been conflated with rights and powers of men and women.
First female presidential candidate & first divorcee to run for that office
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greater successes were in romantic dramas. A recipient of two Academy Awards, she was the first thespian to accrue ten nominations.
