Julia Child Quotes

I was sent to a nice Church of England girls' school and at that time, after university, a woman was expected to become a teacher, a nurse or a missionary - prior to marriage.

I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' generation has that feeling.

What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren’t supposed to work if they had families. What were they to do when the children were grown — watch raindrops coming down the windowpane?

Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men-they want to wrap women up in a neat little package.

I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the roles that they play.

That is partly why women marry - to keep up the fiction of being in the hub of things.

The woman who has her being in marriage and motherhood has become part of antithetical reality, revoking property from the woman who remains in a condition of intangible femininity.

On the whole, the experience that the activity of the soul obeys the law of least resistance has been verified even in regard to women's social morals. As a rule, these have been focused on the family and on charity - among other reasons, because woman's sense of duty seldom finds means of expression in other directions.

What I increasingly felt, in marriage and in motherhood, was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were two different and possibly irreconcilable things.

But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?

The expectation was I would get married and become a mother and settle down. We didn't have any role models. We saw teachers and doctors and nurses, but I'm not a teacher, and there was no possibility of being a doctor or a nurse. I had to work and find my own way.

I don't think 'Motherhood' is a map for women. I would never say that it's a template for every woman in response to her biology.

I am a biological female. I have two children. I've been married for 16 years. I've never been a man.

All of the Arabic women I grew up listening to or watching had a very strong character.

Fear and niceness, the handmaids of all women, or more truly, woman its pretty self.

Our culture has created two almost irreconcilable descriptions of a 'good woman.' The first is the individual achiever; the second, the self-sacrificing domestic goddess.

Young women today, as in the fifties, find themselves entering the big world and having to make choices.

'Who Fears Death' addresses the push and pull in African culture that powerful women face when their culture has certain duties and beliefs that can stifle them.

Conservatism is affecting the way women perceive who they are in the world.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.

I grew up in conservative rural Kansas in the 1950s when it was expected that girls would not have a life outside the home, so educating them was a waste of time.

You don't have to conform to a very specific aesthetic today, whereas 1950s women definitely had to.

What does it mean to a successful woman today? Does it mean you have to be a mother? If you are a mother, does it mean you have to be a mother with a husband? If you don't have a husband, what is the role that the man plays? I think there are a lot of confusing things that we're all really still sorting out.

What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.