Herbert Spencer Quotes

And I think women have come a very, very long way, but they have a long way to go.

Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex.

As we move into the twenty-first century, women's status in society will become the standard by which to measure our progress toward civility and peace.

The best thermometer to the progress of a nation is its treatment of its women.

Woman has always been man's dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shaped the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change.

The embattled gates to equal rights indeed opened up for modern women, but I sometimes think to myself; that is not what I meant by freedom, it is only social progress.

We also have to make sure our children know the history of women. Tell them the rotten truth: It wasn't always possible for women to become doctors or managers or insurance people. Let them be armed with a true picture of the way we want it to be.

I'm thankful for the work that feminists like Gloria Steinem have done. I am a feminist, but the geography for women today is vastly different than it was in the '60s.

Women's issues have always been a part of my life. My goal is to bring the word 'feminism' back into the zeitgeist and reframe it.

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement.

Now that women are persons, what's ahead?

Feminism, like Boston, is a state of mind. It is the state of mind of women who realize that their whole position in the social order is antiquated, as a woman cooking over an open fire with heavy iron pots would know that her entire housekeeping was out of date.

Every movement takes a century to make its mark. The women’s movement is only 40 some years old.

I was a proponent of the ERA.

I was born after the heavy spade work of female emancipation was done.

I think we've come a long way with women's rights, but we've got a long way to go.

We need to stop refighting 40-year old battles on women's rights.

We always had a lot of admiration for feminists who were out there trying to change things for the better for women, who were trying to find equality in the workplace and at home.

If you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist.

Women's history is the primary tool for women's emancipation.

I've been reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, which is obviously very dated now but still relevant. It's so interesting to see how far we've come and how far we haven't come with all these myths that people put onto women.

Today the two hundred million men in our country are entering into a civilized new world...but we, the two hundred million women, are still kept down in the dungeon.

Did I not feel that the time has come for the questions of women's wrongs to be laid before the public? Did I not believe that women herself must do this work, for women alone understand the height, the depth, the breadth of her degradation. - Seneca Falls Convention, 1848

Even if I am simply one more woman laying one more brick in the foundation of a new and more humane world, it is enough to make me rise eagerly from my bed each morning and face the challenge of breaking the historic silence that has held women captive for so long.