Women S Rights Activists

"It is always when I do the things that are purpose-driven that I am happiest, most fulfilled and go the furthest. I’ve learnt to listen out for the voice of God regarding my purpose and follow that."

"For me, the most rewarding thing is that I am able to influence people’s lives in my own small way."

"I am driven by the thought of seeing myself reach the pinnacle of success."

"I am also driven daily by the belief that I was made to be a positive influence in people’s lives and make a meaningful impact in my community and globally."

"I would like to be remembered as a woman who cared about youth development and women development and who went about doing that in innovative ways."

"Go where you are needed, look for a gap that you can fill and go for it!"

"“When you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”"

"Women are not children; they are adults that know what they want to do. They should be recognised with their dignity and to start a business whenever they feel like it."

"To ensure that we achieve the goals for our development by 2063 we need to fully invest in and optimize of the continent’s other half which for too long has been neglected: the African female."

"People say I am powerful but I care more about impactful – in the work I do with children, adolescents, women or even institutions. Those who observe can say, ‘you are powerful,’ but it doesn’t come from me to say I am powerful."

"African women need to be in the driving seat of national discourse,women need to be at the centre of our economies,they must also pro-actively seek to correct the status quo."

"Investing in education from early childhood has a lasting effect on the survival, development, protection and active participation of children in social, economic and political activities."

"What they have taught me and what I take from their lives is this real ability to go beyond yourself and to dedicate your life to the common good, to create spaces and opportunities for freedom for all."

"Education, particularly for girls, is a catalyst for reducing child and maternal deaths and lifting people out of poverty."

"We must reinvent our relationships and re-engineer the way we relate in our families, in our schools, in our workplaces with the spirit of ubuntu that Archbishop Tutu taught us and exudes with every fibre of his being."

"These are the beautiful faces,the brilliant minds and vibrant voices of our daughters, nieces, sisters, whose childhood and innocence we have left unprotected, and these shocking statistics on teenage pregnancy do not even paint an accurate nor comprehensive picture of our shameful disregard for young people we claim to love and cherish."

"Africa’s socio-economic transformation will only be realized once we aggressively address gender-specific challenges, prioritize gender equality and women’s participation, and firmly entrench women in leadership positions at all levels in society."

"We have to change our mindsets, our behaviours, our value system."

"We are proving that we can come together as a united human family to holistically tackle COVID-19, let us apply an equally comprehensive, vigorous, and unrelenting focus to eradicating gender-based violence as well."

"The problem is not the consequences of what’s happening, it’s the root causes of why and how we got where we are as a society.”"

"A pandemic within a pandemic has been exposed and we are confronted with the horrific reality that millions of women and children — in every country — are fighting for their survival, not just from COVID-19 but from the brutalities of abusers in the prisons of their homes."

"The developed world needs to feel that these huge levels of poverty (are) a threat to their own security. When their interests are at risk, money can be found."

"We need to make the message much clearer -- that aid means saving lives, it’s not a luxury."

"The role tradition has played in the relationship in the family between men and women has been detrimental to women."

"Culture for me is when you sing or dance, when you have theatre, when you read a book, a beautiful poem. It doesn't matter whether it's Shakespeare who wrote it or whether it is an African poet – it is communicating with all of us, regardless of who you are, your colour, your social structure."

"Tradition has developed into practices which overtime have become beliefs which in essence they put women in a position of inferiority."

"It is not just fear of a husband that makes a woman bow to these traditions. They are ingrained in her from her upbringing, the women learn to accept as if it's normal."

"Tradition has developed a hierarchy in relationship between men and women that leads to discrimination."

"We are a society where women, and children by the way, are not safe anywhere. Something absolutely and deeply wrong is happening in our society."

"Organization is the hope of the world, and woman the elastic cement that is binding organizations together, and by them and through them we hope soon to hold the banner aloft to the nations of the world, proclaiming the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."

"The Red Cross follows after the army, binds up the wounds made by the sabre and the bullet, closes the eyes of the dying, and sends the parting message to the widow and mother; but the Peace Movement, with a broader charity, seeks to abolish guns and bayonets and to settle all difficulties by arbitration, or by judicial methods."

"Women have nothing to gain by war, and the laboring man only a soldier's grave, or wasted health, with his sacrifices speedily forgotten or ignored by the Government and the masses."

"The United States can afford to be generous and progressive along the line of peace legislation, even to taking the initiative in a permanent Treaty of Arbitration with a country as highly cultured as Great Britain, for the peace spirit is the cultured one, and the war spirit the savage side of human nature; other nationalities would be sure to follow. This would be the dawning of a new day, an epoch in history ever to be remembered. The present industrial condition of the country, the struggle of labor against the greed of monopolies, of trusts, of vast aggregations of capital, is a far greater menace to the security and prosperity of the State than any foreign foe possibly can be."

"The great war of to-day is a war for bread and butter"

"No thoughtful person, no humane person, believes in war, which destroys everything and creates nothing but hatred. We believe and teach peace and arbitration in the home, in the church, in society, in the State, and between nations. We believe in the sanctity of human life, the inalienable rights of individuals, in justice, in equality and fraternity. Our Government has already settled many serious difficulties with the various nations of the world by arbitration and by treaty, without resort to war and without bloodshed, and the expense of all of them combined has not been one-tenth that of the War of the Revolution."

"Our Congress, without any danger of war unless we provoke one by meddling, are continuously making appropriations for war ships to strengthen our Navy, in order to protect long stretches of sea coast, that no nation has the remotest idea of attacking, or to protect our foreign commerce, which has recently grown so small that one would need a microscope to discover it. These large naval appropriations furnish very good jobs for the young men who graduate at Annapolis; and glory for the Secretary of the Navy, who is usually anxious to magnify himself and his office. So the money of the people is spent for a costly vessel that will usually stand the strain of one peaceful cruise at sea, providing there are no storms, and then go to the dry dock for repairs. These appropriations are not only useless, but positively harmful, for they at once alarm our European friends, and incite them to a greater increase of their military and naval appropriations."

"Peace is a matter of education more largely than of legislation; although the latter is necessary."

"Our own civil war cost our nation one million men and three billion dollars, besides the waste of valuable records and countless treasure, and $145,000,000 yearly in pensions. It laid the foundation of the countless financial disasters of 1895, and created sectional prejudices and hatreds that will not entirely die out during the next fifty years."

"Your favor containing the question, as to whether I consider myself a "new woman" is before me. As a rule I do not consider myself at all. I am, and always have been a progressive woman, and while never directly attacking the conventionalities of society, have always done, or attempted to do those things which I have considered conducive to my health, convenience or emolument, as for instance: Attended college and graduated when the general sentiment of the people was against it, and this after I had been a married woman. Entered a law school and graduated, at a time when there was much opposition to such. Applied for, and was admitted ultimately to the United States Supreme Court. Such a course had been previously unknown in our history. I was the first woman to ride a wheel in the District of Columbia, which I persisted in doing notwithstanding newspaper comments. I accepted a nomination to the Presidency by the Equal Rights Party, and my letter of acceptance was published throughout the length and breadth of 2 worlds. I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade; or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men; but wish we had more of it everywhere. I was new about 60 years ago, but did not then appreciate my privileges. Yours truly, Belva A. Lockwood."

"It is doubtful if a candid person, entirely unacquainted with the facts, who should read English history with an account of the seven years' war of the Revolution, and then read our American history of the same events, could believe that they related to the same events. The same may be said in reference to the historians of the Franco-German war or of our war of the Rebellion."

"APHA has always provided a home for people in public health with a broad view of what public health is. Public health is really about people's life conditions and how these conditions do or do not promote health. APHA is committed to equity and ending all barriers, and has always been committed to civil, human and health rights. It's a wonderful place for women to be."

"We still have a system that excludes, underserves, and even misserves all too many people. The latest census tells us that there are over 44 million Americans without health insurance. That is inexcusable. The failed social policies of the past few decades have widened the gaps between rich and poor, well and poorly educated, medically indigent and consumers of elective high-tech surgery, owners of multi-mansions and the homeless. We need health, but above all we need to create a grounding for healthy public policy that redresses and salvages the growing inequities. We cannot achieve a healthier us without achieving a healthier, more equitable health care system, and ultimately, a more equitable society."

"We have ten statues to the soldier where we have one to the philanthropist."

"Shall we not then have women school trustees and superintendents? Already they are appointed in the East and in the West, and women are permitted to vote at the school elections. Who has a deeper interest in the schools than the mothers?"

"Women brought a feminist perspective to health issues affecting women. They examined power relationships among individuals and between individuals and systems. The very early drafts of Our Bodies, Ourselves, by the Boston Women's Health Collective, which was seminal in all this, said we need to know our bodies, we need to know what makes us healthy and what threatens our health, and we need to negotiate or confront the health care system to get the best possible health from it."

"The only way to effect change was for more women to go into the professions and instill a different perspective—a more human touch and a more respectful relationship with patients."

"What brought me to the women's movement was the women's health movement. The cultural elements of feminism didn't resonate with me, but abortion resonated with me. I became part of the women's movement in October 1970 at an international meeting on abortion rights attended by several thousand women and held at Barnard College in New York City."

"The women's movement was very diverse, but the more public positions articulated by the movement didn't include the experiences or concerns of women of color or of poor women."

"In Puerto Rico, racism was subtle. There wasn't the kind of separatist racism like in the US. I wasn't used to this."

"We got a lot of flack from White women who had private doctors and wanted to be sterilized,” she said. “They had been denied their request for sterilization because of their status (unmarried), or the number of their children (usually the doctor thought they had too few). They therefore opposed a waiting period or any other regulation that they interpreted as limiting access . . . While young white middle class women were denied their requests for sterilization, low income women of certain ethnicity were misled or coerced into them"