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GURL POWER
[Tanith Lee] [Douglas Adams] [Emily Dickinson] [Winnie-the-Pooh] [in Latin] [Lyrics] [Quotes] |
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1.Women matter as much as men do 2.Women have the right to determine their lives 3.Women's experiences matter 4.Women have the right to tell the truth about their experiences 5.Women deserve more of whatever it is they are not getting enough of because they are women: respect, self-respect, education, safety, health, representation, money. --Naomi Wolf; Fire With Fire |
Feminism as spelled out in media-generated images and on actual women's bodies
won't have accomplished much until it embraces a flexible
attitude toward shape as a woman passes through the stages of her life.
Whether it's teen-age chub or middle-aged thickening, all bodies need to
be allowed to dwell in the world with grace. Real "girl power"
- not the narcissistic, imperious kind - would renounce the female self-hatred that creates intolerance.
-Katherine Dieckmann |
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“It hurts so much!” said the little mermaid. “Yes, you must suffer a bit to look pretty!” said the old queen.
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We all have our own kind of life to pursue, Our own kind of dream to be weaving... And we all have the power to make wishes come true As long as we keep on believing. ~ Louisa May Alcott |
| And here is
the danger: even though girls know that happiness in marriage is at best
a fifty-fifty proposition, the intoxication of approval and recognition
is so heady and so addictive that they will often pursue what they
suspect to be a losing battle, at the expense of other opportunities for
education and employment. The Little Mermaid is ideologically pernicious
in that it does not question the severe limitations on female options,
the means by which they can obtain satisfaction in the world, or provide
a way out of the desperate need for male approval upon which the
mermaid’s search is based. -Susan White; Split Skins |
"Women must understand that simply attacking or hating all men is just another
form of disempowerment. A woman has to realize that when she makes a man
crawl it doesn't give her power. All it will do is make her puke
eventually. Rather than say "all men are bastards" let's say
"all men are infants, until they decide to be men." Calling
them bastards is boring at this stage." -Tori Amos |
| Female masochism [pleasure in
sacrifice; “submission”] involves a triumphant conquering of pain,
physical and psychological, which “assures” the woman of approval
from the idealized man. -Susan White; Split Skins |
"Women should try to increase their size
rather than decrease it, because I believe the bigger we are, the
more space we'll take up, and the more well have to be reckoned with. I
think every woman should be fat like me." — Roseanne |
| Because women have let the false images
stand as out representatives, we have falsified ourselves, diminished
ourselves, chosen to divide ourselves and exist in a hopeless, endless
stasis, unable either to act truly or to be ourselves in freedom and
enjoyment. What can we do? We must change our image instead of merely
withdrawing inside it and denying that it represents the self. -Elizabeth Janeway |
Visual prejudice has caused world wars, mutilation, hostility, and alienation generated by fear of “the others.” Self-hatred is an economic necessity, a capitalistic, totalitarian, religious invention used to control the masses through the denial of the importance of a body language, which is replaced by a work ethic devised to establish a slavery of the mind burdened by that awful albatross- the body… The soul struggling to become free…the ultimate gift being death. |
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Why don't you give me a call when you decide you're willing to fight for what you
think is real, for what you think is right ~ Ani DiFranco; "Willing to Fight" It [courage] is rarely reckless or foolish. To write our dreams into action, give voice to our visions and tongues. - Kitty Tsui Your silence will not protect you. We refused to be what you wanted us to be. We are what we are. That's the way it's going to be. -Bob Marley It's the mind that makes the body. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Open your eyes and look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living? |
The only queer people are those who do not love anybody.
– Rita Mae Brown
Change cannot change love nor time impair, for love is more than a feeling...love is a decision; a commitment to care forever. The way I see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times
are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up. Do you know how few creative people are left in this world? So many conformists and
imitators...Original. It's very rare. Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in
saying exactly what you think yourself. ...watching...always seeking...always longing to be loved for just being who she was... |
| “You can’t turn over your life to someone else, letting him tell you what
to do, letting someone else decide your life for you! Don’t you see
that? ….You’re a beautiful girl with your whole life ahead. You still have choices.
It’s a sin not to find out for yourself who you are, what you can do.
I wish somebody had told me that when I was young. Your first allegiance
is to yourself- now, when you are young and have the chance. Sometimes,
later in life you’re not free…Circumstances…they- take over. They
get you. Where’s the freedom then, I’d like to know?” -Jan Slepian; Something Beyond Paradise "A beautiful lady is an accident of nature. A beautiful old lady is a
work of art." If you were in love, you took what you could get and gave all you were allowed to give
for as long as you could manage. "Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they
speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful." |
For Marlene Dietrich, commenting on seeing herself in "The Blue
Angel" on television, it was an ironic sense of pleasure. "I
looked at my face on the television screen, and I remember how every
tooth was capped, how every inch of skin on that face and neck was dyed
and shaped, and in spite of knowing that, I sit back and say to myself,
'That is still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my
life.'"
For others, beautiful thinghood becomes an
affliction; the image of self stirs painful feelings of inadequacy.
Singer/actress Lanie Kazan spoke revealingly of a seven-year period of
crisis, during which she fell victim to the corroding influence of her
own publicity photos. Haunted by her inability to live up to, or embody,
the air-brushed perfection of the image, she became house bound. "I
went to bed in 1969," she related, "and I didn't get up until
1976.... I would not come out until I looked like my photograph." |
| "The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one
should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul
shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a
possibility, you are not attractive -- you are leaking. — Fran Lebowitz |
“It’s about taking a stand, not being pushed around, pressured or maneuvered.
I might not be a high roller, …but I’m ready to play my hand.” – Nora Roberts; The Winning Hand |
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"Where shall we see a better daughter or a kinder sister or a truer friend?"
-Jane Austen; Emma "We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are." "I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man." "Plant your own garden - don't wait for someone to bring you flowers." Hopes and dreams and the possibility of it all. Dare to believe, dare to dream. Manifest divine thought and intention. You can stay in one place and still grow. |
Follow your bliss.
Dwell in possibility. –Emily Dickinson Dance as though no one is watching you, What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? Sometimes you have to stand alone to make sure you still can. "In the Primordial age, woman was once the sun " - Raicho Hiratsuk; Japanese poet The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were
not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or
women created for men. |
| "I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough.
What do you want -- an adorable pancreas?" — Jean Kerr (a message on an e-Board from a woman commenting on how much she enjoys her singles life, yet her desire for a Prince Charming)“…As long as he realizes that if we do get married, he has to live across the street.” –rubie60 If it has testicles or tires, it is bound to give you trouble! No lover is worth your tears, and the one that is will never make you cry. "No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. " - Alice Walker All of Hell's fury hath no equal to that of a woman scorned, and boy! Have I had a b*#ch of a day.... |
“...I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to
me! ...I never knew how I should say my love. ...I never knew such
goodness in the world.” -Elizabeth Proctor; The Crucible, Act IV; Arthur Miller I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so
much. "Women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world, or God." - Mary Daly No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt Peace is always beautiful. -Walt Whitman |
| Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every
man is a variation of yourself. -William Saroyan |
"The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is
born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy." — "A Woman of No Importance," by Oscar Wilde, 1894 |
| There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity
you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. -Sophia Loren |
"When will you learn that being normal is not
necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage."
-Practical Magic |
| Don't worry about developing laugh lines on your face. You're going to get
some wrinkles no matter what you do, be it frowning or squinting or
laughing. And specialists like Karen Burke, M.D., Ph.D., a dermatologist
in private practice in NYC, say "positive" wrinkles, like
laugh lines, give your face some character — just as frown-faced women
can develop creases that make them look perpetually glum.
— "Age Erasers for Women: Actions You Can Take Right Now to Look Younger and Feel Great," Prevention Magazine Health Books, Editor (Rodale Center for Women's Health, 1997) |
The good-looking compare themselves with the even better-looking, the rich
with the even richer. Automatically running after what you don't have
(yet) may give you a competitive edge, but taken to unreasonable
extremes, it can lead to lack of self-acceptance and lack of joy . The
key to happiness is being able to occasionally override the
more-is-better attitude and appreciate and feel gratitude for what you
have. — "Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty," by Nancy Etcoff |
| The high status of beauty is one reason why it is a subject fraught with
such heated emotions. Didn't democratic societies ban the aristocracy
and level the playing field? Perhaps this is also why we are so easily
persuaded by the idea that beauty is attainable through the usual
democratic means -- hard work and money. If it confers elite status,
then we must make it an elitism based on effort and achievement, not a
priori advantage. —"Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty," by Nancy Etcoff |
Wisdom knows and research confirms that people who feel themselves to be
attractive are correspondingly rated by others as being attractive. A
happy confidence in our ability to attract others has the benefit of
making us appear more relaxed and therefore facially more youthful; it
allows us to smile a natural symmetrical smile, and helps us to respond
more positively to feedback from others. — "The Secrets of Sexual Body Language," by Martin Lloyd-Elliott |
| In Brazil there are more Avon ladies than members of the army. In the
United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social
services. Tons of makeup--1,484 tubes of lipstick and 2,055 jars of
skincare products--are sold every minute.
—"Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty," by Nancy Etcoff |
Why doesn't beauty, that brings so many advantages, bring more happiness?
[Psychologists Ed] Diener and [David] Myers believe that happiness has
more to do with personal qualities such as optimism, a sense of personal
control, self-esteem, ability to tolerate frustration, and feelings of
comfort with and affection for people than with looks or money. — "Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty," by Nancy Etcoff |
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