The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. For a long time there may be no perceptible reward for women other than their new sense of purpose and integrity. Joy does not mean riotous glee, but it does mean the purposive employment of energy in a self-chosen enterprise. It does mean pride and confidence. It does mean communication and cooperation with others based on delight in their company and your own. To be emancipated from helplessness and need and walk freely upon the earth that is your birthright. To refuse hobbles and deformity and take possession of your body and glory in its power, accepting its own laws of loveliness. To have something to desire, something to make, something to achieve, and at last something genuine to give. To be freed from guilt and shame and the tireless self-discipline of women. To stop pretending and dissembling, cajoling and manipulating, and begin to control and sympathize. To claim the masculine virtues of magnanimity and generosity and courage. It goes much further than equal pay for equal work, for it ought to revolutionise the conditions of work completely. It does not understand the phrase 'equality of opportunity', for it seems that the opportunities will have to be utterly changed and women's souls changed so that they desire opportunity instead of shrinking from it.

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. For a long time there may be no perceptible reward for women other than their new sense of purpose and integrity. Joy does not mean riotous glee, but it does mean the purposive employment of energy in a self-chosen enterprise. It does mean pride and confidence. It does mean communication and cooperation with others based on delight in their company and your own. To be emancipated from helplessness and need and walk freely upon the earth that is your birthright. To refuse hobbles and deformity and take possession of your body and glory in its power, accepting its own laws of loveliness. To have something to desire, something to make, something to achieve, and at last something genuine to give. To be freed from guilt and shame and the tireless self-discipline of women. To stop pretending and dissembling, cajoling and manipulating, and begin to control and sympathize. To claim the masculine virtues of magnanimity and generosity and courage. It goes much further than equal pay for equal work, for it ought to revolutionise the conditions of work completely. It does not understand the phrase 'equality of opportunity', for it seems that the opportunities will have to be utterly changed and women's souls changed so that they desire opportunity instead of shrinking from it.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote
Save Quote
Similar Quotes by germaine-greer

Psychologists cannot fix the world so they fix women.

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch
Save QuoteView Quote

Marriage cannot be a job as it has become.

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch
Save QuoteView Quote

The woman who realizes that she is bound by a million Lilliputian threads in an attitude of impotence and hatred masquerading as tranquility and love has no option but to run away, if she is not to be corrupted and extinguished utterly.

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch
Save QuoteView Quote

Liberty is terrifying but it is also exhilarating.

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch
Save QuoteView Quote

Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote

Women are reputed never to be disgusted. The sad fact is that they often are, but not with men; following the lead of men, they are most often disgusted with themselves.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote

Man is jealous because of his amour propre woman is jealous because of her lack of it.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote

Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote

All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man no society will survive a shortage of women.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote

I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.

Germaine Greer
Save QuoteView Quote
Related Topics to germaine-greer Quotes