Gloria Steinem Quotes About Birth
-
I did not see any way that I could possibly give birth to someone else and also give birth to myself. Far from feeling guilty, it was the first time that I had taken responsibility for my own life.
→ -
Think about the pressure to "pass" by lying about one's agethat familiar temptation to falsify a condition of one's birth oridentity and pretend to be part of a more favored group. Fair-skinned blacks invented "passing" as a term, Jews escaping anti-Semitism perfected the art, and the sexual closet continues the punishment, but pretending to be a younger age is probably the most encouraged form of "passing," with the least organized support for "coming out" as one's true generational self.
→ -
Whatever each individual woman is facing; only she knows her biggest challenge. However, if we add up the problems that affect the biggest numbers of women, then issues having to do with physical safety and reproduction are still the biggest. Female bodies are still the battleground, whether that means restricting freedom, birth control and safe abortion in order to turn them into factories, or abandoning female infants because females are less valuable for everything other than reproduction.
→ -
For women, all women, whatever our sexuality, it's crucial to our health that we are able to separate sexuality from reproduction. I mean whether or not we can control when we give birth is the biggest element in our health, our education, our economic welfare, our life expectancy, everything.
→ -
Women well understood how to restrict birth through timing of sexual intercourse, herbs and abortifacients. I suspect the focus on men's control of women as the means of reproduction came later, in the last five percent or so of human history, with the idea of children as property and labor. One needed to have as many as possible, never mind about women's health or mobility or brainpower. Women's freedom was restricted in order to make sure of the paternity and ownership of children.
→ -
Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.
→ -
No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin—because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life.
→ -
It still may take some explaining, but many more women are keeping their birth names (and not calling them maiden names, with all the sexual double standards that implies).
→
Related Authors
-
Andrea Dworkin Writer -
Angela Davis Political Activist -
Madeleine Albright Former United States Secretary of State -
Christian Bale Actor -
Camille Paglia Teacher -
Margaret Sanger Activist -
Wilma Mankiller Сhief of the Cherokee Nation -
Marisa Tomei Film actress -
Susan B. Anthony Women's rights activist -
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Activist -
Bella Abzug Lawyer -
Cesar Chavez Civil rights activist -
Phyllis Schlafly Lawyer -
Alice Walker Author -
Bell Hooks Author -
Betty Friedan Writer -
Eve Ensler Playwright -
Marlo Thomas Actress -
Jane Fonda Actress