Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There's a lot of women in blues music, lots of strong women and that sort of stuff. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about blues. There were a lot of powerful blues guitar players in the olden times that were women. It's just that when you think about blues, you have this one image in your mind.
This moment right here, me standing up here all brown with my boobs and my Thursday night of network television full of women of color, competitive women, strong women, women who own their bodies and whose lives revolve around their work instead of their men, women who are big dogs, that could only be happening right now.
I get very frustrated when I hear women saying, "Oh, feminism is passé," because I think feminism means empowerment. Men can be feminists, too! Many men are feminists. We need feminism. It's not against men; it's about the empowerment of women. It's the respect of women - giving women equal rights, the same opportunities.
If you read a lot of Chinese literature, there has always been very strong women figures - warriors, swordswomen - who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it's not new to our culture - it's always been very much a part of it. It's good that now the Western audience would have a different image of the Chinese women.
I keep getting asked how I write about such smart, strong women, and my response is, what's the alternative? Weak, stupid women? They're just normal people, not role models - if you're aspiring to be like any of them, something's a little bit wrong. You may want to dress like one or have her job, but do not aspire to be her!
Smart and savvy, the fearless female member of George Washington's Secret Six is a testament to the strong women who have helped to alter the course of history in this great nation, both in terms of large-scale battles and in the new opportunities they have helped create for future generations through their own fearless examples.
'Hollywood maids' are so idiotic. They grin at everything. I told Norman Lear I didn't want to play a maid because of that 'hee-hee/grin-grin' attitude, and he said, 'Who said I wanted that?' He told me he wanted two strong women that are the black and white of the same coin. I said, 'Oh, well - in that case, I'll be right there!'
If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.
I started with wanting to think about witches, about strong women who have special powers - who are often misunderstood. Then I found some beautiful blue fabric, so I made Blue Witches. My creative process is always like that. Organic, text, theme, subtext, each day evolving and trying to make strong, beautiful clothes. It's that simple.
What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.
It is not enough to call yourself a feminist because you are a strong woman. Thatcher was an enemy to feminism, as is Nadine Dorries. Like other liberation movements, feminism has an ideology and a goal. It is not about personal liberty and freedom, but the emancipation from oppression and tyranny for ALL women, whatever our race or class.
In spite of all the cultural restrictions, in spite of marital or political difficulties, a strong woman continues to create and makes the world go round, such as Abigail Adams and Alexandra Bergson, Harriet Scott, and Emily Dickinson all did. History is full of women creators in the arts, many of whom created under oppressive circumstances.
Strong Women never put their safety or their self-esteem aside to please someone else or to keep a man. If someone acts inappropriately or abusively in any way (including becoming emotionally abusive), Strong Women stand up for themselves and make it abundantly clear that they will not tolerate the abuse. If this doesn't work, they walk away.
Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkable. They are right about this. She is smart, funny and thoroughly charming... Often, after hearing her speak at some function or working with her on a project, people will approach me and say something to the effect of "You know, I think the world of you, Barack, but your wife... wow!"
"Plaza de la Soledad" is a documentary about Carmen, Lety, Raquel and Esther, four strong women - middle-aged and older - who want to break a vicious circle that began with abuse and abandonment suffered from an early age. They simply want to have a better life. The film follows their quest to find true love and their capacity to transform themselves.
It is an interesting law of romance that a truly strong woman will choose a strong man who disagrees with her over a weak one who goes along. Strength demands intelligence, intelligence demands stimulation, and weakness is boring. It is better to find a partner you can contend with for a lifetime than one who accommodates you because he doesn't really care.
We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, "Oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away; I rose right where I'd been knocked down." That's how you get to know yourself.
Every time a cool rock chick or actress seems to respect themselves as a strong woman, I'm like, 'Yeah!' And I love them, and they're my girls. And then they start to go downhill and people aren't paying attention anymore. So they start stripping their clothes off, because that's all they have left. I swear to everything I've ever known, I will never do that
I don't really stay away from politics but the bullshit just gets to be too much. Any political tweets I take down after an hour or so. They are met with such a wall of stupidity and anger, it is hardly worth it to leave it up. Particularly, if you say anything about Hillary Clinton, the responses are just nuts - "YOU JUST FEAR SMART, STRONG WOMEN, MR. MAN".
As a female athlete, you're always fighting to be on a level playing field with your male counterparts. But I believe the Olympics is great for young girls; they get to be exposed to so many different sports and to these really strong women. It's an opportunity to showcase what we do, which is something that men get the opportunity to do on a pretty regular basis.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen or she turns blue choking. A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong in words, in action, in connection, in feeling; she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.
I wake up every day super excited to be a woman! It's amazing. I wouldn't have it any other way. There's an incredible diversity of people writing comics right now. As a writer, there are a lot of parts that I was thinking about in terms of the specific experience of being a woman superhero and what that means - the kind of pressures that are on strong women, and how women are able to feel strong in a public world.
think people get scared that they’re not going to be able to do it perfectly - they’re going to be criticized - they’re going to be like, “Well, I’m not totally green.” Well, you know what? At this point we don’t care... Just a shade of green is enough right now. Move a little bit closer towards this. Because the more people start moving closer and closer to it, that’s something that collectively makes a difference.
I just wanted to honor who Emily was. She's just a strong woman. Through my journey of playing her, I found a lot of strength, and I think that I've changed, as a female, in the way that I carry myself. To go through something traumatic, like getting your face scarred, it made me analyze vanity a lot. When you have a little pimple and you're like, "Oh, my god, there's an alien on my face!," you feel like it's magnified.
Depending on the day or even the hour, productivity can take very low dips. At times, I may feel like throwing in the towel. I love being inspired by amazing women who have achieved great things. When I have a setback, I will spend 15 minutes reading quotes from strong women or reading or watching an interview with a woman I admire (a gold medalist or a CEO). This gets me back in the right mindset to tackle any challenge.
And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
We all look up to these strong women who we see in magazines and on TV, but it's even more empowering to realize that change comes at the smallest level. It starts with us. It starts with me and my best friend, who I'm out on a walk with today, hearing about the amazing things she's doing for her kid's school. It can be everyday heroes and everyday women who work 9:00 to 5:00 and have kids and still balance a healthy social life.
I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I'd known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd be born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.
It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail...Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us.
This book is entirely dedicated to my wife, Robin Sullivan. Some have asked how it is I write such strong women without resorting to putting swords in their hands. It is because of her. She is Arista. She is Thrace. She is Modina. She is Amilia. And she is my Gwen. This series has been a tribute to her. This is your book, Robin. I hope you don't mind that I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world. --ELTON JOHN, BERNIE TAUPIN
I've always loved strong women, which is lucky for me because once you're over about twenty-five there is no other kind. Women blow my mind. The stuff that routinely gets done to them would make most men curl up and die, but women turn to steel and keep on coming. Any man who claims he's not into strong women is fooling himself mindless; he's into strong women who know how to pout prettily and put on baby voices, and who will end up keeping his balls in her makeup bags.
The image of the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, our anger as purifying, and our power to nurture and create, but also to limit and destroy when necessary, as the very force that sustains all life. Through the Goddess we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions. We can move beyond narrow, constricting roles and become whole.
In my opinion, the most important thing as a woman leader-and I learned this early through a whole bunch of great women who were in my life (and men, I have to say)-is that if you have a position of leadership and power and you don't use it in a different way, then you're wasting it. So when people used to say to me when I was the first woman president of PBS, "Well, you know, does that mean that as a woman you're going to be a different kind of president?" And I would say, "Well, I hope so!"
Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men-that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex.
“I'm not going anywhere.” Gently, he stroked her back, cradled her head. Was there anything more astounding or more frightening to a man, he wondered, than a strong woman in tears? “I've been right here all along. I love you, Eve, almost more than I can stand.” “I need you. I can't help it. I don't want to.” “I know. He eased back, tucking a hand under her chin to lift her face to his. “We’re going to have to deal with it.” He kissed one wet cheek, then the other. “I really can’t do without you.“
Most of all, I like the quiet, rounded tugs. They remind me of women. As I watch them work I see them as kindly, no-fuss boats which patiently tend much larger, grander and more important-looking ships. They make sure these ships get to the right place as the right time, shepherding them with a pull or a push as needed. Their power is not immediately obvious but it is there - inside. I watch them a lot and never tire of seeing their unsung but absolutely essential work. The silent strong women of the sea.
I've played lots of strong women in film, in big Hollywood films, and I've sometimes had a hard time in coming to a consensus of what makes a woman strong. What is it that positions her as a force to be reckoned with? And I think it's because there's an expectation from the get-go that she isn't. If you're not starting from a deficit as a point of view, but you're starting from an assumption that says, "Well, this is what women really are," then it's a really freeing experience as an actor and as a woman.
It doesn't matter what word we use, if it has the same content, it will be treated in the same way. There are other words - there's "womanist," there's "mujerista," there's "women's liberationist" - all mean the same thing and they get the same ridicule. I think we just need to choose what word we feel comfortable with that says women are full human beings, and whatever that word is, it will get a lot of opposition. But it will also attract a lot of support. But this is a revolution, not a public relations movement.
One of the things that I loved about when I met my husband was that he picked me up and he paid - I know that sounds old-fashioned but for me, most of my life, I always would split the bill or would always pay, or I would be very assertive about my independence and my financial responsibility. And I am a very strong woman and very strong-willed - but there was something really great about him taking care of me and treating me and opening the door and driving, and I am perfectly OK with that. And he still does it to this day.
My inspiration comes from many sources, and one of those sources is precisely the maison Versace. When I was a little boy, my family was not very well off. I had a sister who worked in a hairdressing salon. I lost my dad when I was 4 or 5 years old. I grew up with eight sisters and my mom. Nine incredible women all a little "à la Donatella Versace." Real strong women from the South of Italy, women who had sensuality. They had a confidence in their body and in their sensuality. And it was a poor family, I am very proud to say it.