Women S Rights Activists

"But do women have agency to enter politics on their own? Or must we be beholden forever to male patriarchs, and misogynistic dictators, to whom we are answerable for our political participation?"

"My multiple identities empower me to fashion my writing into an effective weapon fighting against injustices meted out by holders of abusive power onto underprivileged groups in society."

"I don't get inspired by high and mighty women, it's everyday women. It's grandmothers, stepmothers, second wives, all swearing at their men."

"These women are working, no matter where they are placed within politics. They entered political participation with the heart of the masses, the heart of the people, with the will to work against oppression."

"The third layer of participation for me are women who become enablers. They are not working with, but right from the word, ‘go’, they enter politics to enable those who are oppressed, suppressed, and abused."

"We need to end the silence and put pressure on governments and the private sector to prioritize mental health care reform. And the reform process needs to be guided by informed decision-making that includes the voices and stories of people with lived experience."

"Speaking up about this subject can be difficult. But the time has come for people who have lived with mental health disorders to make sure their voices are heard."

"Thirty years is a long time in the history of caregiving as an issue in our country. The world was a very different place then. We used push-button phones, not cell phones, and had big word processors, not personal computers. There were social clubs, not social media, and people took care of each other because of a sense of familial responsibility. You didn’t hear much about “caregivers,” not because they didn’t exist but because what they were doing was quite common, and it was expected."

"To neglect those who, through no fault of their own, are in need, runs counter to our values, our decency and equality. Today, with our knowledge and expertise, we have a great opportunity to change things forever, for all people with mental illnesses, with what we know now, to move forward to a new era of understanding, care and respect."

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be."

"I want people to know that mental illnesses can be diagnosed, can be treated. The overwhelming majority of people can live full and productive lives in the community. People don’t know that. That’s one reason I wrote the book. But I want everybody to know what I know, so we can get over the stigma and go on to do what is good and right for people with mental illnesses."

"Recovery is one prevalence. Mental illness affects all of us. They touch every family in our country. One in four Americans is diagnosed with mental illness every year, one in four. This is one reason why I cannot understand why stigma is still so bad because everybody knows somebody, if not a family member, a close friend, living with a mental illness. Stigma is the third thing. Stigma is the greatest barrier to seeking care for individuals who have mental illness, the greatest barrier for a person with a mental illness. And it’s the greatest barrier for those of us in the field who are trying to do something about it."

"Compassion is what makes our nation great. When we invest in the health and happiness of our fellow Americans, we reap dividends that pay off for generations. We urge our leaders to support all those Americans who are seeking to restore and maintain their physical and mental health. We can think of no better way to strengthen our economy, our communities, and our families."

"And what will that future hold? Perhaps none have a greater right to ask that question than the young people of this country, and none are more qualified to answer. The ten teenage essay winners who participated in the opening ceremony had been asked: "How will women have changed this country by the year 2087?" Although they came from places as diverse as Dorchester, Alaska and the Bronx, New York, each was chosen because she or he had expressed a unique opinion or insight into the future role of women in our society."

"American women have increasingly realized — as have men — the impact our opinions have in the voting booth and the marketplace. We have united to impact politics and policy, but also importantly to use our influence to help the poor, the oppressed, and those who suffer from mental or physical illnesses."

"Maybe a hundred years from now we can say "We the People" and include all of the people of this great country of ours. If what we heard from each other and from our young people is an example of changing attitudes, we can truly look forward to the future as a golden age for women."

"I hope that no one will ever tell a girl that there is something she can’t do because she is a girl. I hope that women have and embrace the power to change things, so that every person can choose a life that offers them respect from others and deep satisfaction for themselves. I hope that equal education and equal opportunities are available for women to grow to their maximum potential, whatever that is. I hope women will use political power to make the world a better place and claim a natural role as the world’s peacemakers."

"I wanted to take mental illnesses and emotional disorders out of the closet, to let people know it is all right to admit having a problem without fear of being called crazy. If only we could consider mental illnesses as straightforwardly as we do physical illnesses, those affected could seek help and be treated in an open and effective way."

"I have already seen the butterfly garden, and I'd like to thank everybody who made that possible. And the movie, and I'm sentimental already. I have known Jimmy Carter for most of my life — I think for all of my life except when I was very small. He likes to say that he was my next-door neighbor when I was born, and he looked through the bars on the cradle and saw me. I didn't recognize him then."

"Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished."

"Scientific advancements over the past three decades have greatly improved our understanding of the causes, nature, and treatment of many diseases and disabilities, including mental illnesses. Attention to the social determinants of health has led to the identification of risk factors and underlying causes of disadvantage and illness. Technology has made possible unparalleled public access to information so that more and more Americans know that treatments work and are available. Additionally, social networking provides multiple platforms from which advocates and consumers can organize and unite efforts to improve quality of life and address issues such as resiliency and recovery."

"Perhaps we should think of gender as something that is imposed at birth, through sex assignment and all the cultural assumptions that usually go along with that. Yet gender is also what is made along the way – we can take over the power of assignment, make it into self-assignment, which can include sex reassignment at a legal and medical level."

"It is important to acknowledge that, while a white person cannot claim to represent Black experience, that is no reason for white people to be paralyzed on matters on race, refusing to intervene at all. No one needs to represent all Black experience in order to track, expose and oppose systemic racism – and to call upon others to do the same."

"Nearly twenty years ago, I began as a classroom teacher in Richmond, VA. Many of my students struggled due to community and domestic violence."

"Gender is an assignment that does not just happen once: it is ongoing. We are assigned a sex at birth and then a slew of expectations follow which continue to “assign” gender to us."

"The greenhouse gases are causing the global surface temperatures to rise, and we need to build the adaptation and mitigation measures."

"At the time I was interested in a set of debates in the academy about speech acts. “Performative” speech acts are the kind that make something happen or seek to create a new reality."

"The communities that I serve are plagued by violence and substance abuse. A few years into my career, my best friend, Angel Jackson and her father Herbert Levi Sharpe, Sr. were murdered. This changed the trajectory of my entire career and I began to focus more on mental health and mindfulness in the black community."

"I am passionate about connecting children of color to yoga and mindfulness and in building healthy communities by disrupting historical trauma and poverty."

"I loved theater and writing short stories as a child. I was always a creative and energetic child."

""Connect girls and inspire them for the future."

"I later asked my father why he chose to migrate with me of all his children and he told me he had seen that I was strong and would grow up to be even stronger"

"When I came back home for my secondary school in Mochudi I was the only girl in a class of seven and fortunately or unfortunately I happened to be the most intelligent. This made me a subject of talk and ridicule by the boys who were somehow bitter that they were being overshadowed by a girl. It was then that I realized it was sometimes an issue to be a girl"

"In terms of numbers we were almost equal but men had an upper hand and louder voices. It was like women didn’t exist. And since I was teaching in the rural areas I also interacted a lot with the local women where I realized that women were carrying more than enough on their shoulders"

"In those days the gender agenda was still very foreign but since it was something within me when the time came to advance it, there was no turning back"

"My strength also comes from the fact that I still want to work and share what I have with other people so we all can have better lives"

"I want us not to quarrel with this culture, we must appreciate it because after all a nation without a culture is a lost nation"

"society today should rather dissect the culture to examine whether it advantages or disadvantages the girl child. There is need to educate the girl child, and the right approach to this will nurture girls with the right self-esteem and resourcefulness, she said."

"For us to raise the girl child at the same level in rural and urban areas, we need to give them the chance to speak for themselves, to tell us what they need, their choices and what their visionary paths are"

"there have been historical imbalances from the traditional socialisation of boys and girls under which the boy child was socialised to be more economically empowered.However, the pioneer gender activist warned against any attempts at tinkering with the status quo"

"We need to take into account the human actions that contribute to the adverse impacts of climate change together with the losses and damages that escalates with each and every effect of these issues."

"When women rise, nations rise with them."

"A society that excludes women from leadership is a society that denies itself progress."

"The law must serve the people, not stand above them."

"We had to improvise. We literally had to create the word. “Wesibawi tinkosa.”"

"Justice is not a privilege, it is a right that every citizen must enjoy."

"You might not be happy with the decisions that I make in this position."

"I told them, if they want business as usual, I’m not the right person for this job."

"Leadership for me is having a vision and striving to achieve it. Women need to believe that they can do whatever they set themselves to do, despite the society’s pressure and people telling them otherwise. You can only have the power to be a change maker if you believe in yourself."

"She (Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings) was special and she’s still special and for me, it had to be her. It was a privilege for me to be acquainted with her."