A Quote by Ursula K. Le Guin

The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.
Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They all want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies. Yes, it is hard to believe but even here at home we have to stand up for women’s rights and we have to reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America has to set an example for the entire world.
In the current situation with criminalization, we've created situations where sex workers have very little power and control over their lives. Increasing one group of women's power and control over their lives does not take anything away from other women. When a woman's value has been constructed as keeping a man and keeping him faithful, then when he's not we've been taught to internalize that there's something wrong with us.
Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful. And I don't mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That's not power. That's just corruption.
I want men and women to both feel a part in the flourishment of female power. So I want to celebrate that power that women have, that they acquired and are still acquiring all over the world. And it's kind of my way of joining the movement and bringing positive attention to an overgrowing awareness of females everywhere who are breaking the mold.
The nature of women's oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children - we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.
What's happened with the over-the-counter birth control issue is that the Democrats didn't see it coming. They think that they've got a monopoly on talking to women from the waist down. Anything that has to do with reproduction and birth control and abortion - they call it women's health, then they call it women's issues.
I hope we don't have to keep going back over the same territory and winning the same rights over and over again. The battle for birth control. The battle for abortion. The parity of women's health. It's very depressing to think that you win these rights, but then you have to win them again, and again, and again, and fight the same battles over and over.
I think for women especially, writing and creating your own role, producing, directing - having some control over what you do is really important. We can pave the way for other women to send what messages they want sent.
If you want to truly stand up for women's reproductive rights, then stand against birth control. Because nothing says anti-woman more than birth control.
When I say, 'I want women to have control over their bodies,' I mean that I want women to know and embrace their fertility.
There are some die-hard male chauvinist pigs and there are some Neanderthal women who are threatened by equality - but the great majority, polls say 65% to 75% of women of America, of all ages, absolutely identify with the complete agenda of the women's movement: equal opportunity for jobs, education, professional training, the right to control your own body - your own reproductive process, freedom of choice, child care-the whole agenda.
In the beginning no power differential existed between male and female. God empowered both with full rights and responsibility to rule outward over all creation, not over each other. As we know all too well, the fall changed everything, precipitating male rule over women and also the rule of some men over other men, a.k.a., patriarchy. Within patriarchy, women no longer derive their value from their Creator, but from men - father, husband, and sons. Within patriarchy, a woman's value is gauged by counting her sons.
For Islamic fundamentalists male "honor" is equated with control over the women in a man's family - to the extent that killing a woman who makes her own sexual choices (like marrying without her father's consent) is considered honorable, rather than criminal.
Heterosexuality is a die-hard custom through which male-supremacist institutions insure their own perpetuity and control over us. Women are kept, maintained and contained through terror, violence, and the spray of semen...[Lesbianism is] an ideological, political and philosophical means of liberation of all women from heterosexual tyranny.
That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so.
Typically, we see an upsurge in anti-abortion violence . . . when the anti-abortion movement kind of thinks it was on the verge of victory, and then finds itself somehow thwarted. . . . When there’s frustration among the anti-abortion forces, violence often results.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!