Dan Rather Quotes

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we do to each other.

For me, talking about the casting couch in the Malayalam film industry was like calling the sky blue. There is nothing new about calling a spade a spade. My intention was not to create an effect; I just wanted to pluck a few weeds in the system and throw them out.

I don't know how much of the 'casting couch' exists in the industry, as I've not seen it myself. I'm glad that I've not had to.

Fortunately, I have never been a victim of sexual harassment. But there have been instances where I have lost out on work or people have shown disinterest in working with me because I was unwilling to succumb to this unspoken understanding of patriarchy.

A lot of things have hurt me about the industry. I don't want to be very vocal about this but it's an everyday fight with Bollywood. It's like a love hate relationship.

It was titled 'Confirmation' very purposefully. I wanted the film to be about that process - about how Judge Thomas and Anita Hill were thrown into a situation that was difficult for anyone to navigate, no matter what the truth was. It's hard to know what the truth is.

There is casting couch in the Malayalam industry.

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them

Social change can be painful for all involved—oppressor and oppressed.

Quebec women are treated like sows.

It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them

A point concerning property, which ought, for the reasons I have just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, frequently exercises the wit of successions of lawyers, for many generations .… But the question concerning a man’s life, that great question in which no delay ought to be counted tedious, is commonly determined in twenty-four hours at the utmost. It is not to be wondered at that injustice and absurdity should be inseparable companions.

Women to govern men, slaves freemen, are much in the same degree; all being total violations and perversions of the laws of nature and nations.

… all the baggage of a paternalistic society will have to be thrown overboard.

The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law

One of the major differences between gender discrimination and Racial or Religious Discrimination is that the with the latter the perpetrators fundamentally recognized that it was based on power offered moral challenges. However, men—the perpetrators of discrimination against women have mostly not even considered the moral aspect of it and perceived it as natural.

I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct .... It was too trivial to be considered anything of significance. To call it a sexual assault is not based in reality.

This is why it’s so hard for women to publicly accuse men of predatory actions. The victims are perceived as dramatizing and self-important. They risk not being believed. Or getting blamed. Or having crimes investigated improperly. Or being called selfish, mendacious. Women suffer automatic credibility deficits when leveling such accusations, while men enjoy “himpathy,” -- the “excessive sympathy sometimes shown toward male perpetrators of sexual violence.

One famous movie executive, who shall remain nameless, exposed himself to me in his office. 'Mr X,' I said, 'I thought you were a producer, not an exhibitor.'

Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.

Any woman who has ever worked in a gutsy male environment knows that the correct response to a randy remark is an even more salacious retort. But timid feminists don't see it that way. To them, the proper reply is a lawsuit - that safe, modern version of the old slap in the face.

I value what I learned from being cast in the margins and what that felt like.

It's important that we start conversations about changing the culture of sexual harassment and discrimination in politics, state capitols, and our larger communities with an acknowledgment of the courage of so many women who have chosen to speak up and speak out.