Barbara Seaman Quotes

When we have throat problems, it usually means we do not feel we have the right to do these things. We feel inadequate to stand up for ourselves.

It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for.

I've learned the importance of speaking up for myself and voicing my opinions and my ideas. I'm definitely a shy person.

Many times I have asked Muslim women not to nurture the victim mentality. stand up for your rights

We have to learn to stand up for our interests. To seek purity is self-defeating and a stereotype in itself: women have to be pure, women are not concerned about money.

You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you'd say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell 'em, "Enough!

I said, I'm going to stand up and somebody is going to pay attention to me.

When we don't ask for what we want and need, we discount ourselves.

It was easy to blame other people for treating me in ways I didn't like, but now I was seeing that I was the one at fault. The only way you can be mistreated is by allowing yourself to be mistreated, and that was something I did over and over again. Somehow, I needed to find that glimmer of self-respect, buried deep inside, that would allow me to say: I am never going to let that happen to me again. I needed to learn how to stand up for myself in a different way, but I didn't know how.

Youre supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for Gods sake!

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.

I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back and pretend.

I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. It gave me a vision that I could do something different, and it gave me an understanding that I wasn't a monster, or sport, or a betrayer of my family.

The feminists taught us about consciousness-raising.

I get my strength from wanting to teach other women that everything about you is OK, and you shouldn't take any crap from anyone.

You have set standards for how you want to be treated and what you expect from yourself and for yourself.

Don?t back down just to keep the peace. Standing up for your beliefs builds self-confidence and self-esteem.

Women have got to stop being polite. If I ever had children, which I don't, the first thing I'd teach a girl of mine is the words 'f - off.'

Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.

I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.

Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself. Keep fighting for your dreams!

[On how she goes about trying to live authentically] Well really listening to my point of view and if I am on a set, say, that doesn't really value a woman's point of view, regardless of how they feel, continuing to give my point of view and try to find a way to be heard and not diminishing myself because other people are diminishing me. Because that, I think, is the worst temptation that, you know, you judge yourself by how others are judging you, and to fall into that trap is to walk into the realm of self-annihilation.

As a black man, I have to respect myself and have nice things. As a man in general.

Say yes to your self. Say no to your anti-self.

For Black people, we're one of the only groups of people that for some reason to express love of yourself, in some ways, is misconstrued as a dislike for someone else.