A Quote by Kevyn Aucoin
When I was growing up, the men in my life were abusive; women were the ones I ran to for comfort.
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I was a young feminist in the '70s. Feminism saved my life. It gave me a life. But I saw how so much of what people were saying was not matching up with what they were doing. For example, we were talking about sister solidarity, and women were putting each other down. We were talking about standing up for our rights, and women weren't leaving abusive relationships with men. There were just so many disconnects.
Families were living separately from the fathers. And so although, according to African culture, men were the head of the household, the truth is women were the ones who were raising everybody, including men. And growing up with my mother, that was something I really learned to appreciate.
When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which we are not women; that's essentially what it is.
It is important to note that research has shown that men who have abusive mothers do not tend to develop especially negative attitudes toward females, but men who have abusive fathers do; the disrespect that abusive men show their female partners and their daughters is often absorbed by their sons.
So while a small number of abusive men do hate women, the great majority exhibit a more subtle-though often quite pervasive-sense of superiority or contempt toward females, and some don't show any obvious signs of problems with women at all until they are in a serious relationship.
I didn't have a father growing up, and I was raised with all women, and I didn't really understand men. I thought they were like women, right?
The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.
All women are strong. My mother survived Auschwitz, and fear wasn't an option when we were growing up. If we were afraid of the dark, we were put into the closet until we weren't.
In my family, growing up, the women were always the ones who were powerful, and they exuded this charisma of empowerment that I hold onto and always remember. I had some difficult times, but these strong women were always a constant.
Back in the days when men were hunters and chest beaters and women spent their whole lives worrying about pregnancy or dying in childbirth, they often had to be taken against their will. Men complained that women were cold, unresponsive, frigid... They wanted their women wanton. They wanted their women wild. Now women were finally learning to be wanton and wild - and what happened? The men wilted.
In Quebec, as women were getting more power, there were the men who agreed with that and the men who were afraid. I think most men are willing to share power with women, but there's fear. Every time you change something, there's a friction.
In our young minds houses belonged to women were their special domain, not as property, but as places where all that truly mattered in life took place - the warmth and comfort of shelter, the feeding of our bodies, the nurturing of our souls. There we learned dignity, integrity of being; there we learned to have faith. The folks who made this life possible, who were our primary guides and teachers, were black women.
When I was growing up, it was Clint Eastwood, it was Harrison Ford and Steve McQueen - these guys were tough. They were leading men, but they were also tough and physical.
When I grew up, it was a time when women were just supposed to be cute and not have many opinions. My mother and her friends were quite different. They were all the most beautiful women you've ever seen ... and they were very strong women.
My wife is a doctor, and we had a decent life financially. My kids were going to nice schools and had nannies. We weren't rich, but we were better off than I was growing up. And I looked around, and I was like, 'Who are these people?' It was the opposite of what I remembered growing up.
My mother and my two grandmothers, I was lucky to have three women around me growing up that were very special, very elegant women, very beautiful women. They were my first step into the beauty world, let's say, and then the fashion world, of course.
When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.
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