A Quote by Joyce Maynard

I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves.
Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.
I was unfair to him, of course, but where would I have been without unfairness? In thrall, in harness. Young women need unfairness, it's one of their few defenses. They need their callousness, they need their ignorance. They walk in the dark, along the edges of high cliffs, humming to themselves, thinking themselves invulnerable.
I want all women - teens, young women, older women, pregnant women, ageing women - to love and accept themselves.
Women of all ages need to be present in the media to instill girls and young women with self-confidence about their futures. And women of my age need healthy role models. Otherwise, how can we build the future dreams we still deserve to have?
I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves. As a fourth-degree black-belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and be able to defend yourself, and that's something that we should start to implement for a lot of women.
It is probably true to say that the largest scope for change still lies in men's attitude to women, and in women's attitude to themselves.
Women don't have to listen to their inner-critic and hold themselves back; they can unleash themselves and reach their best potential if they put their effort into it. That's what I want my daughter to do.
I specially want to have young women not to wait as I did until my children were grown, but young women to come in to gain their seniority so they could be respected leaders at a much earlier age. It's important for all women to see young women who share their experience whether it's as a working mom with young children, who understands the struggle and the aspirations of young women in a similar situation. And if they don't have family and they're pursuing their career women should see that as well.
I think it's important to present role models for young women coming up. I really do believe you can't be what you can't see, and representation matters. So, for me, it's the idea of putting women in media in ways that present them as having power, being heard, being true to themselves, and done from the perspective of women.
Often we women are risk averse. I needed the push. Now, more than ever, young women need more seasoned women to provide that encouragement, to take a risk, to go for it. Once a glass ceiling is broken, it stays broken.
I believe that young lesbian women need to see themselves on TV. They need to see the representation, especially young black lesbians.
When I first started out in comics they would put me on these Women of Marvel panels, and these young women would come up to me and say, "I really want to write comics but I don't know if I can because I'm told that it's just for guys." I would say, "That's bullshit. That's absolute bullshit. Look at me!" But the one area where we still need to work on is that we need more women of color. That's not common thing yet.
Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.
Young women are not as likely to receive the encouragement they need from role models like teachers and parents. And they should be encouraged - studies show women are just as likely as men to win when they do run.
Women being women, they are very sincere, committed, and honest in what they do. If they feel they are shortchanging some segment of their responsibility, they have a tendency of holding themselves back. What I would like to tell them is that it is not necessarily true that you will short-change one or the other.
Women who stay true to themselves are always more interesting and beautiful to me: women like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe and Anna Magnani - women who have style, chic, allure and elegance. They didn't submit to any standard of beauty - they defined it.
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