Women Activists From The United States

"Articles from Chicana print media and the development and publication of oral histories played a vital role in the development of the Chicana studies curriculum. The Chicana press included Francisca Flores's Regeneración, a magazine published in Los Angeles; Chicana newspapers such as Hijas de Cuauhtémoc and Pepita Martinez's El Grito del Norte from New Mexico; and journals such as Encuentro Femenil, a Chicana feminist journal from Long Beach, and San Francisco's Dorinda Moreno's La Mestiza. In addition, there were special edition community newspapers from all parts of the nation."

"In the words of Francisca Flores, "Women must learn to say what they think and feel, and free to state it without apologizing or prefacing every statement to reassure men that they are not competing with them.""

"picking up the pen for Chicanas became a "political act." ...Women also founded and edited newspapers-El Grito (Betita Martinez); Encuentro Feminil (Adelaida del Castillo and Anna Nieto-Gómez); Regeneracion (Francisca Flores); and El Chicano (Gloria Macias Harrison). Through their writings, Chicanas problematized and challenged prescribed gender roles at home (familial oligarchy); at school (the home economics track); and at meetings (the clean-up committee),"

"The suggestion itself was never viewed objectively. The fact that the suggestion came from a woman gave it some lesser value. p.56"

"when one perceives that the saloon is not the cause that menaces the safety and welfare of society, that it is not the cause of poverty and crime, one must, if honest with one's self, and if possessed of a truly revolutionary spirit, transfer activities to other fields."

"While economic and material benefits have accrued to the master class through the education of the workers; while large profits were only possible through a trained and skilled laboring class, yet in this very thing which makes for the triumph of the master class financially, we see a potent and powerful factor in bringing about the political and industrial supremacy of the working class."

"Women, like any minority, have personal problems which many do not feel can be, or will be, discussed in general meetings of men. Women must have an avenue open to them, to deal with these issues so that they can project them for support of the whole movement of la causa."

"Some of the workshops held on Saturday were so large that only the most vocal and most aggressive could be heard discussing issues that interest women but which are shaking the men who feel threatened by women in action, women in leadership roles, women who are literally out of reach of the masculine dictum. The three workshops which received the greatest and the hottest discussion were: Sex and the Chicana-Noun and Verb; Marriage: Chicana Style; and the Feminist Movement: Do We Have a Place in It?"

"If the promulgators of the "Chicana's role is in the home having large families" also projects concern with the health problems of abnormal or self-induced abortions and still born births, we might accept their contentions as a basis for discussion. As it stands, however, we have to conclude that their belief on the role of the Mexican women is based on erroneous cultural and historical understanding of what is meant by "our cultural heritage," as it relates to the family."

"Abortion is a fact of life. Long before more moderate laws were introduced, women were engaged in aborting pregnancies, many times endangering their health. Some in desperation going to quick abortion mills or to unscrupulous medical men bent on making a fast buck. Abortion, in our opinion, is a personal decision. The women must be allowed to make it without legal restrictions."

"those who promote backward and reactionary theories cannot cleanse themselves by engaging in diversionary tactics... blaming all who do not agree with them-as being women's lib! The tactics of reaction used to be red-baiting... now we have women-baiting. Women's lib, indeed!"

"more Chicanas are fighting for their do not care who does not like it. Women must learn to say what they think and feel, and free to state it without apologizing or prefacing every statement to reassure that they are not competing with them."

"The effort and work of Chicana/Mexican women in the Chicano movement is generally obscured because women are not accepted as community leaders either by the Chicano movement or by the Anglo establishment."

"The women will have a lot to say from now on. Not only on those questions which affect them personally, such as abortions, the pill, sex information, child care, well being of the family, relationship to other women's organizations, education, equality, etc., but also issues of interest to the whole group, such as peace, prison reform, law enforcement. And this includes the welfare of the men."

"long-time labor activist Francisca Flores and Ramona Morin of the women's auxiliary of GI Forum founded La Carta Editorial in the mid-1960s to serve as a community-based publication that would report on political activities. Flores went on to found Regeneración in 1970 and made vital contributions through her magazine's singularly forthright analysis regarding women's issues. Besides two Chicana special issues published in 1971 and 1973, Regeneración was known for its news stories that reported on women's organizing, op-ed pieces that critiqued sexist practices in the Chicano movement, artwork featuring local Chicana artists, and articles analyzing political issues and legislation affecting the lives of Chicanas."

"we insist that "our cultural heritage" implies that the woman must be placed on a pedestal, without examining the reason for this attitude, it's inevitable consequences and it's effect on the youth. We must bring this issue out into the open ... discuss it and its psychological implications upon our community. Only in this way will it be possible to lift the burden it is placing on our women."

"Francisca Flores had fabulous organizing energy despite a long struggle with tuberculosis that left her with only one lung...She was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and once said "we must march with him""

"The most difficult moments were trying to pull my family through my cancer operation. I really had to pull them through, and to try to make them happy because they were so sad and upset."

"Too many women are so afraid of breast cancer that they endanger their lives. These fears of being "less" of a woman are very real, and it is very important to talk about the emotional side effects honestly. They must come out into the open. It was easier for me to accept the operation, because I had been married for 26 years and we had four children. There was no problem of lack of love, affection, and attention. But some women don't have these same emotional resources, and it is very necessary to deal realistically with the fears about breast cancer."

"As the barriers against freedom for Americans because of race or religion have fallen, the freedom of all has expanded. The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom of women."

"Cancer also produces fear -- and much of that fear cots from ignorance about the progress already made and ignorance of the need for preventive medicine for men and women alike. Cancer wherever it strikes the body, also strikes the spirit, and the best doctors in the world cannot cure the spirit. Only love and understanding can accomplish this important role."

"I feel absolutely marvelous. I just had my annual checkup and all my tests are completely clear. There is no sign whatsoever of a cancerous reoccurrence at this point. I am convinced that I am completely cured."

"The long road to equality rests on achievement of women and men in altering how women are treated in every area of everyday life."

"Freedom for women to be what they want to be will help complete the circle of freedom America has been striving for 200 years."

"I believe we are all here to help each other and that our individual lives have patterns and purposes. My illness turned out to have a very special purpose -- helping save other lives, and I am grateful for what I was able to do."

"I'm not the type that's going to burn my bra or do something like that I really don't feel that strong about it. I feel that the liberated woman is the woman who is happy doing what she's doing, whether it's a job or as a housewife, it doesn't make a bit of difference. Just so she, inwardly, feels that she is happy and that she is liberated."

"While many new opportunities are open to women, too many are available to the lucky few. Many barriers continue to block the paths of most women, even on the most basic issue of equal pay for equal work, and the contributions of women as wives and mothers continue to be underrated."

"I have perfect: faith in my husband. But I'm always glad to see him enjoy a pretty girl. And when he stops looking, then I'm going to begin to worry. But right now, he still enjoys a pretty girl. And he really doesn't have time for outside entertainment. Because I keep him busy."

"I do not believe that being First Lady should prevent me from expressing my ideas. I spoke out on this important issue because of my deep personal convictions. Why should my husband's job, or yours, prevent us from being ourselves. Being ladylike does not require silence."

"I told my husband if we have to go to the White House, "Okay, I will go. But I'm going as myself. And it's too late to change my pattern. And if they don't like it, then they'll just have to throw me out.""

"Well, I think a Congressional wife has to be a special kind of woman. I don't think that all women, really, can adjust to this type of life."

"Change, by its very nature, is threatening but it is also often productive. And the fight of women to become more productive, accepted human beings is important to all people of either sex and nationality."

"I think that there are sane women that probably have their husbands around the house more than they'd like. And then there are those that wish their husbands were home more."

"But changing laws, more job opportunities, less financial discrimination, and more possibilities for the use of our minds and bodies will only partially change the place of women in this country. By themselves, they will never be enough because we must value our own talents before we can expect acceptance from others. The heart of the battle is within."

"We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go, and part of that distance is in our very own mind."

"We have to take that "just" out of "just a housewife." We have to show our pride in having the home and family our life's work. Downgrading this work has been part of the pattern in our society that has undervalued women's talents in all areas."

"to really, really admit that you understand what is happening to the planet, it will break your heart. If you don’t cry deep, hard tears for the state of this planet and all of the people on it, you don’t yet understand the problem. And so once you get to that place, the only thing that can bring you out of that kind of darkness is belief in something greater than yourself."

"We’re going to lose everything, and my last name is Battle. What am I supposed to do? I’m supposed to fight. I’m supposed to fight, but I’m supposed to fight with tools that build people up, not tools that take people down and take them out. And that’s love. That’s patience. That’s all of those things that they taught you in Sunday school. They were right."

"This is not about greenhouse gas reduction. This is about do we value people equally? And if we do, we’ve got some recalibrating to do, as a planet."

"I can’t believe that it is the U.S. government — it’s our government, it’s our representatives, under every administration in these international talks — that are stopping the conversation that says: finance the work needed for the people who are feeling the impacts of climate; finance that, because you caused it. It’s our country saying no. That, to me, is like, come on now. We’re better than that. This is lives we’re talking about. This is mass migration. This is people’s lives. This is heat deaths. This is fires. This is storms. Put everything into this. We’re fighting over whether or not people should have the right to vote? We’re fighting over whether or not people should have the right to their bodies? That is child’s play compared to what this climate crisis is. Where is the righteous indignation on this issue? And why can’t we get past that?"

"Love leads to joy...The joy comes from love. To combat this thing, to combat the oil industry’s fear of losing profit, I have got to help to bring joy of the community’s love of everything that they are."

"Perhaps even in this last hour, in a new relation of usefulness and beauty, the vast, magnificent, subtle and unique region of the Everglades may not be utterly lost."

"Today, the movement of water through the Everglades is entirely unnatural, and the Everglades are considered one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet. As 106-year-old Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, longtime Everglades advocate explains, "The lake's entire southern rim was diked by a high levee, so that the only outlets were the canals, all fitted with gates to control the waters in an effort to put man, not nature, in charge of the Everglades. All this provided an enormous area upon which agriculture, mostly sugarcane, developed to the south and southeast of the lake.""

"It was too soon to expect that all these people would see that the destruction of the Everglades was the destruction of all. They had all cried for help in times of extreme wetness and of extreme dryness, as if they could not realize that they lived under a regular alternation of extremes. They received the help always given in emergencies. But they could not get it through their heads that they had produced some of the worst conditions themselves, by their lack of co-operation, their selfishness, their mutual distrust and their wilful refusal to consider the truth of the whole situation."

"But here came an order from the President to take all the five hundred Piutes under your care there and take them across the Blue Mountains, and across the Columbia River, to Yakama Reservation'. This order came in December. Imagine what a severe winter it is out there at that time. They could not disobey the order although everything was said that could be in our behalf. But we took up the march and the soldiers had good buffalo shoes and buffalo robes and prepared for their comfort, and here were my people. They were poor and had no clothing and no blankets and no buffalo robes, and nothing to make them warm, because we did not belong to a buffalo country. We took up our march and marched over drifting snow, my people carrying their little children. Well it took us a good while. Some times, after we camped here and there, some would come along making a great noise crying. Some white people would mimic and mock them. Women would be coming along crying, and it was not because they were cold, for they were used to the cold. It was not because they were sick, for they suffered a great deal. The women were crying because they were carrying their little frozen children in their arms"

"We came on here and I pleaded- at least my father did - and of course my father asked for that same reservation back again. Says he 'I did not do anything'. He said 'my people did not do anything'. He said that our people had saved the lives of white people, and were now scattered everywhere and why should my people be punished like that?"

"If we avoid the worst and we're able to adapt in a way where we really kind of changed our approach to things like equity and how we deal with the environment. If we do that, and I want my son to know I was a part of it, even just a small part of it, but part of it, and if we don't and we fail, I want him to know that I tried."

"Redstockings staged a public hearing at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, where a dozen women told a crowd of several hundred about their own abortions. The effect was electric, sending shock waves through the community and the nation and helping to lead a groundswell of action against illegal abortion, one that culminated a few years later in Roe v. Wade. This first speak-out, organized by Shulamith Firestone, Irene Peslikis, and others, inspired similar events elsewhere, including in France, where a number of prominent women, including Simone de Beauvoir (Ellen Willis's heroine as well as Firestone's), risked imprisonment by publicly declaring, "I have had an abortion.""

"My message to you, in the midst of all of this loss and in the shadow of fault and blame is that I’m angry. I’m angry that it took a storm of this magnitude to open the eyes of all those who would laugh and academically rebut the assertion of continued racial inequality. There are those who would suggest that people like being poor, that people wanted to stay in the path of the hurricane. We can look to the media and the hue of those who are accused of looting versus those who were accused of commandeering to see there are tangible injustices in this society today."

"I’m angry that the people of this country still choose not to acknowledge that social injustice happens on a daily basis in daily actions of everyone who lives here. But most of all, I’m angry that my family, my friends, my neighbors, after three weeks and two hurricanes, still have to wonder, when is this country going to look at us at human beings. The people of the Gulf Coast should no longer be referred to as those people. We are your people. We are citizens of this country. We need your support, and we need your help, and we deserve that. On behalf of those who have lost everything, the Pichon family in Slidell, Louisiana, would like to say to you and to the President of the United States, we need action today. I’m hopeful that today we will choose action instead of indifference. I implore you to care enough about inequality in this country, rather than turn your head away from the injustices not just in the Gulf Coast, but in Appalachia, in D.C. and southeast."