Elizabeth Selbert Quotes
Our demand for … equal rights does not originate in feminine tendencies. In the 30 years I have spent in politics, I have never been and never will be a feminist.
She did not identify with “feminists” because most of the ones she read and came into contact with tended to want to change the role of women in society. Selbert wanted them simply to have equal rights under the law, and then individually each could make of that what they would. She was very effective because she did not threaten men as much as many of the feminists of the time did. All she said she demanded was equal and fair treatment in the culture that existed. She probably knew that the equality in fact would lead to major changes in society, but she saw no point in discussing that.
Elizabeth Selbert, 1896-1986, German Politician & Lawyer, Member of Parliament (Bundestag), Quoted in Eva Kolinsky, Women in West Germany, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Schafly is an inveterate anti-feminist who has made statements like these on the quotation throughout her career. There are no feminists who agree that their objectives include what Shafly claims they are. And feminists do not urge sexual promiscuity. They do urge that women have the same right to sexual promiscuity as men. In some cultures women’s adultery can be grounds for divorcing her and her losing her rights to her children, and in Muslim cultures death by stoning is the consequence. However, adultery on the part of the male has few if any legal consequences. When feminists object to that patent differentiation, they do NOT advocate that women commit adultery, but that the law treat men and women equally and fairly.
This quotation illustrates the statement of a reform principle to appease international interests in basic human rights. This type of statement provides the “fig leaf” for the UN and other organizations to pretend that international standards of human rights are being maintained. Nasser did not implement this principle. By the beginning of the 21st century, Egypt was finally making some progress on women’s equality issues. The prohibition on female members of Parliament—{586723}—had been reversed but women were still not allowed to be judges in a criminal trial, laws against infant female circumcision, and other elements of female equality were still not in existence.
This is one of the most positive statements about women and women’s rights to emanate from a leader of a Muslim Middle Eastern nation.
