Meridel Le Sueur Quotes

I've heard people say that 'The Blair Witch Project' is a feminist movie because there's a woman in charge and I've heard it called a completely anti-feminist movie because this woman screws everything up. Who cares really? It's just a movie.

Society is patriarchal, so film industry by definition is certainly patriarchal. The male gaze dominated.

A lot of times being "completely objective" means seeing the world through a patriarchal eye.

Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.

'Women's fashion' is a euphemism for fashion created by men for women.

I was watching something the other day which started out with five guys walking towards you and one woman, and there you go-it's still being dominated by the male society.

When 'Ruby Sparks' came out, I had to do so many interviews where I had to explain the film and my politics. And I think there was a willful misunderstanding by some people. They thought the movie was trying to perpetrate the thing the movie was deconstructing.

My upbringing is such that I feel my husband is superior to me and his mother even more superior.

Usually superheroes with all their powers and action-driven narratives are supposed to appeal to boys and men more than women; and as an extension of that, it is a given that the creators of these characters are primarily men.

I think all things are political... How women are portrayed - that's a big thing for me. What is this role trying to say about women? Is this woman weak or victimised, and, if so, do we get to understand why?

I think when religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism - as well as Christianity and Judaism - were founded, at that time societies were generally male-dominated. So, therefore this social notion also influenced religion.

[Partly as a consequence of male authority] prestige value always attaches to the activities of men.

The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.

Patriarchy has no gender.

Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.

I don't think men try to make women be like them, but I think women try to make men be like them, a lot.

I realize now how lucky I was, in the total absence of role models, to have only men to rebel against. Today's women students are meeting their oppressors in dangerously seductive new form, as successful congenial female professors who view themselves as victims of a rigid foreign ideology.

Romanticism is a cultural tool of male power to keep women from knowing their conditions.

There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.

I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by his heroism, virtue, and honour. I think the best these men can do is not talk about themselves anymore.

I feel like we need to understand feminism more as a tool to mediate, counteract, to ultimately defeat patriarchy and restore balance to our government, our culture and our ways of thinking and structuring the world. I think we've had a very "masculine" sensibility for a long time, and I think we need to go back to the roots of social imbalance. I think we have to try to right that first, and from there and all these more pressing issues will follow.

I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.

For an author to show that only traditional male power and place matter is to discount and belittle the hard and complex lives of our peers and our ancestresses.

People aren't comfortable thinking of women as people. Like we're not people, we're women, and that means something completely different, especially when you have power.

The patriarchal society has made women believe, first of all, you're only valid and valuable when you're young.