Gender Equality Quotes

“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Last night I was seriously considering whether I was a bisexual or not but I don’t think so though I’m not sure if I’d like to be and argh I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if you like a person, you like the person, not their genitals.”
― Jess C Scott, Tongue-Tied

“A woman is human.

She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man.

Likewise, she is never less.

Equality is a given.

A woman is human.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work.”
― Caroline Criado-Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

“Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong…it is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideas.”
― Emma Watson

“And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.”
― Nicholas D. Kristof, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

“All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.”
― Leila Aboulela, Minaret

“We must raise both the ceiling and the floor.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.”
― Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

“When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on "men wearing dresses" or "men who want their penises cut off" that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults omitted against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands - two equally harmful disciplines.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“The word feminism has become synonymous with man-hating when in fact it has more to do with women than men.”
― Aysha Taryam, The Opposite of Indifference: A Collection of Commentaries

“Some women do not masturbate for pleasure; they masturbate to make a political statement: to remind us that women do not really need men (or at least not as much and as frequently as every single male chauvinist and every single misogynist believes).”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, On Masturbation: A Satirical Essay

“…women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.”
― Judith Martin, Common Courtesy: In Which Miss Manners Solves the Problem That Baffled Mr. Jefferson

“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do or achieve. Do what you want to do and be who you want to be. Just encourage and include each other, don’t ostracize the gender in front of you.”
― Emma Watson

“With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“[A]s people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a 'Platonic' friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) up to the other extreme of passionate love (generally between persons of opposite sex) no hard and fast line can at any point be drawn effectively separating the different kinds of attachment. We know, in fact, of Friendships so romantic in sentiment that they verge into love; we know of Loves so intellectual and spiritual that they hardly dwell in the sphere of Passion.”
― Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex: A Study Of Some Transitional Types Of Men And Women

“I find it strange that practicing law in a comfortable well-heated office is considered too demanding an occupation for women, yet laboring from dawn's first light in crowded, drafty, ill-lit sweatshops is not.”
― Shirley Tallman, Murder on Nob Hill

“How are you supposed to be believed about the harm that you experience when people don't even believe that you exist?

The assumption is that being a masculine man or a feminine woman is normal, and that being "us" is an accessory. Like if you remove our clothing, our makeup, and our pronouns, underneath the surface we are just men and women playing dress-up.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“The scrutiny on our bodies distracts us from what's really going on here: control. The emphasis on our appearance distracts us from the real focus: power.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“People like to think they're open-minded, but if you toss a tired gender stereotype on their path they'll run with it every time.”
― Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Next

“After all, as it says on a needlepoint sampler or throw pillow or the occasional bumper sticker: Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls go everywhere. In high heels. Or mules by Manolo Blahnik, the strappy, tangly kind that give you blisters. And when their feet start to hurt, they bitch about it a lot, until someone agrees to carry them home. Bad girls understand that there is no point in being good and suffering in silence. What good has good ever done? We women still only make seventy-one cents, on average, for every man's dollar. We still have to listen to studies telling us that a single woman over the age of 35 had best avoid airplanes because she is more likely to die in a terrorist attack than get married.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women

“The truth is, that we are in a state of emergency. In the past few years, we have seen an onslaught of legislation... targeting gender non-conforming people...

Our communities are under attack. Regardless of whether these pieces of legislation pass, the fact that they're even being considered suggests just how disposable we are considered to be.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“It's a surreal experience to have your personhood be reduced to a prop.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“At a fundamental level, we are still having to argue for the very ability to exist. The truth is, I still cannot go outside without being afraid for my safety. There are few spaces where I do not experience harassment for the way I look.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“It's like being handed over a scantron sheet and demanded to paint a self-portrait on it. It's possible, of course, but why even bother when a canvas is within our reach? Is it really a choice, when you don't get to select the options you are given to begin with?”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“A lot more airtime is given to other people's use of us, rather than our own experiences. Our existence is made into a matter of opinion, as if our genders are debatable and not just who we are. In other words, there's been a lot of talk about us, but very little engagement with us.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary