the nostalgic feminist...

back when i was a wee little teenager, i remember reading a quote that i absolutely loved. i was in the beginning stages of realizing the need for gender equality and my own personal reasons for being a feminist, and this quote summed a lot of it up for me. of course it comes from a very western perspective but rings true nonetheless. i recently ran across it again, almost 19 years later(!!), and it brought back memories of womens day celebrations and protest rallies from when i lived in bangladesh. those were some good ass days.

at any rate, i just thought i'd share it you...

"because a woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and...for lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement."
~author unknown, quoted in the torch, 14 september 1987