A Quote by Shonda Rhimes

I think it's important for women to have a means to get health care. I think it's important that women have a place to go to get Pap smears and cancer screenings. And it shouldn't be considered extra. It shouldn't be considered something that can be "cut." It shouldn't be something that's in danger of going away. The idea that we're even thinking about cutting that off because somebody else isn't enjoying it themselves or somebody has extreme opinions about it is worrisome to me.
There’s something very important about films about black women and girls being made by black women. It’s a different perspective. It is a reflection as opposed to an interpretation, and I think we get a lot of interpretations about the lives of women that are not coming from women.
What I think is important about essayists, about the essay as opposed to a lot of personal writing is that the material has to be presented in a processed way. I'm just not interested in writing, "Hey, this is what happened to me today." You get to a place that has very little to do with your personal experience and talks about some larger idea or something in the culture. I don't think you can get to that unless you have had a lot of time to gestate and maybe if I was taking a lot of notes while stuff was going on, I wouldn't be able to get to that place as easily.
Somebody asked me earlier if I thought it was really important to tell stories about women's struggles. And I said yes, but at the same time, it's also important to tell stories about women's triumphs, women being slackers, women being criminals, women being heroes.
You really do learn by example... Especially women, sometimes we think somebody's going to rescue us, or somebody's going to teach us how to do it, when in fact we have to understand that the biggest resource we have is inside of ourselves. I know that I can count on me to take care of me. That's a very important thing to know.
As women get more powerful, they get less likable. I see women holding themselves back because of this, but if we start talking about the success-likability penalty women face, then we can do something about it.
There is something about me that is collaborative, that wants to get the best performance out of somebody else or to hear something that somebody else has done that's good and to try and make it great.
I think that at a certain stage those early ambitions burn away, partly because you achieve something, you get something done, you get some notoriety. And then the particularities of who you are and what your deepest commitments are begin expressing themselves. You're not just chasing the idea of "me" being important, but you, rather, are chasing a particular passion.
[Lighting a cigarette] Well, I'm not here to impinge on anybody else's lifestyle. If I'm in a place where I know I'm going to harm somebody's health or somebody asks me to please not smoke, I just go outside and smoke. But I do resent the way the nonsmoking mentality has been imposed on the smoking minority. Because, first of all, in a democracy, minorities do have rights. And, second, the whole pitch about smoking has gone from being a health issue to a moral issue, and when they reduce something to a moral issue, it has no place in any kind of legislation, as far as I'm concerned.
We have to remember that it's usually women who are making the health care decisions for their families.... True equality would mean making sure that there's equity in terms of how insurance reimburses certain procedures; making sure that we have preventative care that's covered so women can get their mammograms and Pap screens without extra charges.
We have to think about the state of women in a more holistic way going forward. We can't be segregated by class and race as we have been. Because even the women at the top can do something about violence against women, right?
I want a future where women and girls get to be the subject of their own sexuality, not the object of somebody else’s. That we are the main characters in our own play, not props in somebody else’s—which is how women’s sexuality is treated now. Whatever the outside attitudes about sexuality it’s always about somebody’s agenda for us, and I want a world where we can have our own.
I think everyone is always asking themselves, How is my work meaningful, how is my life meaningful? As I get older, I feel like who I am as a person and a citizen is more important than who I am in my work. But I do think it reframed slightly for me, how much I have to care about a project in order to want to do it. Sometimes, obviously, you have a take a job for money. But I think I'm quicker now when I get a script that's, say, borderline misogynist, I'm not going to go in for it. I'm thinking more about what I'm putting into the world.
I think it's so fun when I get to work with women writers in particular because we really understand the core story or foundation as women. That's so important to me that the authenticity is there, you know, from the place that I speak from for my women. Having other females with me helps me dig deeper.
A lot of guys get slammed pretty hard. I do think there's a tendency with women performers to just sort of write them off. The "Flavor of the Month" kind of thing. Or as a novelty, because I do think women in bands are still considered a novelty, or a little confection.
I feel like I'm doing something that's worthwhile. I feel like I'm showing something other people haven't shown. I don't get to talk to the people who I photograph, I just go, along, banging away. So I don't really have a relationship with them. A lot of people think it's very important. I don't. It's like love at first sight. I have an impression when I see somebody, and I have an idea of who they are, or what they are.
With President Obama, there's a feeling that he gets it. He has women in his life. He knows that our health care is important, that it's important able to get access to the care that we need when we need it. That's what translates. Women hear that when they hear him speak about these issues. He will be a champion and will defend us when we need it.
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