Anna Garlin Spencer Quotes

The face of a woman, whatever be the force or extent of her mind, whatever be the importance of the object she pursues, is always an obstacle or a reason in the story of her life.

New York City has finally hired women to pick up the garbage, which makes sense to me, since, as I've discovered, a good bit of being a woman consists of picking up garbage.

There's still prejudice and that resistance regarding women, not only on female football but in various activities. Men think that women are a bit fragile to perform some types of activities or don't have the ability and aren't strong enough.

I don't know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it's more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they're a woman and people don't want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society.

I was brought up with a very strong sense of what can happen if your society starts to chip away at the small victories women have won for themselves.

I adopted the assumption of many of my generation that women were intellectually inferior to men, that we were not capable of governing, leading, managing anything but our homes and our children.

My issue with the state of women became incredibly stimulated when I was visiting developing countries and it became obvious that women bore the brunt of so many things in society.

In Sweden, there's a lot of talk of gender equality. That discussion isn't as prevalent in the U.S. I feel that successful American women are tougher than Swedish women - they create their space.

Success on the front of women's rights will look like a world not only with obvious advances - where no girl is denied access to education, for instance - but also one with more subtle changes in how we regard gender and gender stereotypes.

I think that Saudi women are very powerful. And I think that Saudi men are the greatest support to Saudi women.

One of the sad commentaries on the way women are viewed in our society is that we have to fit one category. I have never felt that I had to be in one category.

There will never be any really great women writers in the theatre, because women do not know as much as men.

Feminism, as I see it, is not about counting women in key jobs.

There were not a lot of women in the theater department - it was really run by men, and so the message was that women can be onstage, but women can't really be backstage.

If a woman is successful, then she's deemed to be the exception that proves the rule. If a woman fails, well, we're all failures. That kind of underlying approach to our gender doesn't seem to me to have changed an iota.

Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women's progress by itself is not a panacea for America's inequities.

We needed to be assertive as women in those days - assertive and aggressive - and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be.

We saw the integration of the female pilots in the Navy, in combat roles, and the resistance there in the beginning.

We're not women - we're playing football.

My mom brought me up to be a feminist. She would always point out to my brother and me that our culture does often portray women like objects...

There is plenty of room in the world for mediocre men but there is no room for mediocre women.

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.

I thought I would write something that would make some people uncomfortable. . . . What intrigued me, I think, was the idea of women of my own generation who were successful, intelligent, coming to power and suddenly in the public arena. I started to think about what they are allowed and what they are not allowed.

I wrote a one-act play - I can't remember the name of it, but it was really about the way women are perceived as leaders. In the play, Catherine the Great would say things like, "You know, John F. Kennedy had extramarital affairs and no one says anything. But I bang one horse and now I'm a horse banger for all eternity? That's it? That's what I am?"