Abigail Adams Quotes

Sometimes when I talk, I sound like a feminist because I get really angry when I hear certain things. For instance, a lot of families don't really educate their girls much while they educate their sons to the full extent. I think that's not fair.

Women are not the richer sex. Women are not equal in society.

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.

I think a lot of women are underestimated.

Under capitalism the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed … firstly because the law does not give them equality with men; and secondly—and this is the main thing—they remain in ‘household bondage’; they continue to be ‘household slaves’, for they are overburdened with the drudgery if the most squalid, backbreaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen in the family household.

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.

Being a gal, people can be a bit patronizing. 'Oh, look at you using the computer.' They would never say that to a boy. And I don't let them do it to me.

Whenever you see a successful woman, look out for three men who are going out of their way to try to block her.

Ironically, women who acquire power are more likely to be criticized for it than are the men who have always had it.

I am often asked why there is discrimination against women in science. And I have given it some thought. With prejudicial attitudes, you can't really do much. You can point out when people discriminate and ask them not to.

Very often as a little girl, then as a young woman, I have suffered my lot of discrimination. I was brought up with brothers; I grew up in a boys' world. You have to elbow your way in. When you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time, then you are much more attentive to minorities.

The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.

Why should unmarried women be discriminated against - unmarried men are not.

We are still living with a double standard. I know it. Every woman I know knows it, whether you're in the media as a woman, or you're in the professions or business or politics.

For more than six thousand years the history of woman has been one of hopeless sadness. She moved only to the clank of chains, and her vain desire for better and higher things could not find expression, for woman was by force of circumstances inarticulate. Detraction of one sex and exaltation of the other became a habit of mind expressed in law, in religion, in literature as well as in the ordinary activities of everyday life.

I regret the trifling narrow contracted education of the females of my own country.

It is better to be a male for one day than a female for ten

Treating women like a burden to the men is one of the reasons for poverty.

Both the Army and the Navy are closed to our sex. Nor, again, are we allowed to be members of the Stock Exchange. Thus we cannot use either the pressure of force or the pressure of money. We cannot preach sermons or negotiate treaties. Then again, although it is true that we can write articles or send letters to the press, the control of the press … is entirely in the hands of your sex …

Saudi women far outnumber their male counterparts on university campuses but are reduced to watching men far less qualified control every aspect of their lives.

I have to break down the barriers as a female. I have to work 30 times harder just for respect.

A lot of people like to ask me, 'Ali, how on earth do you balance family and career?' Men never get asked that question. Because they don't.

Sexism definitely exists - you see that in all walks of life.

Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.

... so long as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when shedares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction.