Thursday Thirteen #190

1. I read this morning on a Facebook page that the Dali Lama said this: "Some people automatically associate morality and altruism with a religious vision of the world. But I believe it is a mistake to think that morality is an attribute only of religion. We can imagine two types of spirituality: one tied to religion, while the other arises spontaneously in the human heart as an expression of love for our neighbors and a desire to do them good." I don't know if he really said this, but I like the sentiment.

2. Tillie Olsen in 1972 said this: "How much it takes to become a writer . . . circumstances, time, development of craft - but beyond that: how much conviction as to the importance of what one has to say, one's right to say it. . . . Difficult for any male not born into a class that breeds such confidence. Almost impossible for a girl, a woman." She was a feminist writer.

3. In my sociology class, one or two young women argued that they are as free and equal as their male counterpoints in all areas of life. Here's a statistic: The median weekly earnings of women who were full-time wage and salary workers was $657, or 80 percent of men’s $819. When comparing the median weekly earnings of persons aged 16 to 24, young women earned 93 percent of what young men earned ($424 and $458, respectively). Still think things are equal?

4. “In one of her extraordinary essays, “The Space Crone,” Ursula Le Guin wrote that old women would make the best space explorers. Free from the daily tasks of rearing helpless children, free to see and comprehend without vanity, loving life because we know we may have to leave it soon, we would embark on our journey to the stars not for ego or planting flags but only for information to transmit back to our grandchildren for their future explorations. We know by then that we are part of the flow of life.” — An Adventurous Woman: Erica Jong reviews Somewhere Towards the End, by Diana Athill (this quote found at this link on Ursula Le Guin's website)

5. "In fact that is why the lives of most women are so vaguely unsatisfactory. They are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability)for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. . . .  But inwardly women know that something is wrong. They sense that if you are always doing something for others, like a servant or nurse, and never anything for yourself, you cannot do others any good . . . you cannot affect them spiritually in any way at all. For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself." -- Brenda Ueland (writer)

6. "All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail." -- Dorothea Brande (writer)

7. "There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver." - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (writer and feminist)

8. "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." -- Anne Lamott (writer)

9. "Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.  Luckily, this is not difficult." -- Charlotte Whitton (Canadian feminist)

10. "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is:  I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute." --Rebecca West, "Mr Chesterton in Hysterics: A Study in Prejudice," The Clarion, 14 Nov 1913, reprinted in The Young Rebecca, 1982. (Rebecca West was a writer and feminist)

11. "Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors." -- Evelyn Cunningham (civil rights journalist)

12. "Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry." -- Joan Baez, "Sexism Seen but not Heard," Los Angeles Times, 1974 (folksinger, songwriter and activist)

13. "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." -- Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler (writers and feminists)



~ I started this Thursday Thirteen as an eclectic thing, with no theme in mind, but it turned out to be rather thematic, I think. At least these things are all connected in my mind. ~

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 190th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.