Equal Rights
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- Complete strangers attempt to grope my waist, and then have the gall to expect an apology when I don’t let them.
- Did I ever tell my constituents that if they liked their plan they could keep it? I would have if I ever met anybody who liked his or her plan, but that was not my experience, that was not my experience. And it was not my experience as a mother of five, who occasionally has a bad back and the rest of that. I was considered a poor risk, even though I had some resources and thought I was quite strong for having five children. But the insurance company didn’t see it that way.
- And in a year that saw the internet invalidating the issues of women of color, excluding them from important conversations about feminism, and - frankly - excluding them from feminism period (remember @Karynthia’s #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and Michelle Cottle’s FLOTUS is a Feminist Nightmare), Beyonce came through with the power of Jesus Christ himself and did quite the opposite on a public stage.
- Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela’s former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.
- I try to get them to be a little more sensitive. You know, you look around the Congress and there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than in the Republican caucus. And some of our members just aren't as sensitive as they ought to be.
- Even if many women in Egypt had discovered suddenly during the revolution that they had a voice and they could express what they wanted, they now are back in the family and in the kitchen, and this is where they are told they should be. And this is very grim.
- Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] had many other goals - many other more transcendent, non-racial, policy goals. Goals that apply to white people too. Like ending poverty, reducing the war aspects of our foreign policy, promoting the New Deal goal of universal employment, and so on. But his main accomplishment was ending 200
years of racial terrorism by getting black people to confront their fears... That is what Dr. King did. Not march, not give good speeches. He crisscrossed the south organizing people, helping them not be afraid, and encouraging them - like Gandhi did in India - to take the beating that they had been trying to avoid all their lives. Once the beating was over, we were free. - I think I’m speaking for a bunch of girls when I say that the idea that feminism is completely natural and shouldn’t even be something that people find mildly surprising. It’s just a part of being a girl in 2013.
- I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views…I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh and Phil Robertson gets suspended.
- The fact is, we’re not collecting everybody’s email, we’re not collecting everybody’s phone things, we’re not listening to that…NSA can only target the communications of a US person with a probable cause finding under specific court order. Today, we have less than 60 authorizations on specific persons to do that.
- People will often say, 'Why are you talking about feminism? Why aren't you talking about human rights?' And yes, but we're talking about [women] because there is a group of people in the world who fought for centuries, who have been systematically deprived of rights because they were women. So that's why we talk about women. That's why it has to be about women. Because those are the people whose rights have been taken away. And we can't somehow pretend, 'Oh, let's talk about the human race,' and make things all wishy washy. No, it's women. It has to be women. It has to be feminism. And you have to become one.
- I grew up with the Red Letter Bible, the Bible that highlighted the words of Jesus. And I've thought about that a lot, too. This is the Jesus who said, "Love your enemies," "Do good to those who hate you," "Bless those who curse you," "Pray for those who treat you badly." He
also said, "Everyone who makes themselves important will be made humbled, but everyone who makes themselves humble will be made important." He said, "Whoever wants to be your leader, must be your servant." And Jesus said, "It's the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy, for I did not come to invite good people, but to invite sinners." You know, those words used to be easier to live by before I came to congress, where fighting for leadership and soundbites and making the evening news is common practice around
here.