Feminists

"Woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display."

"As a feminist I understand the necessity and beauty of women’s struggle for autonomy and choice, and the need to transform society for the benefit of all people. And I am re-born as a feminist every time I see a woman or girl resist social limitations and master the art of spreading her wings."

"I shall speak about women’s writing about what it will do."

"It is because of this reality that for every Amílcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara, you also have a Freedom Nyamubaya. There have always been women who have really shaped ideology and who were also brave in shaping their praxis. It is really about patriarchal memory."

"I speak French, English and an Arabic dialect. This is something that is very natural for me and that I don’t think about."

"Women artists need to consider the basic attitudes underlying censorship of women's art work and how it reflects a deep-seated fear in the community. During the past 15 years feminist artists have worked to change patriarchal attitudes towards women. As well, feminist art historians and critics have re-instated many women artists lost in history and made their imagery visible again. The struggle to produce new imagery and to interpret and defend such statements and ideas has often been at considerable personal cost."

"For the past 20 years I have been deconstructing 'the nude' through drawing, painting and collage. Collage is a perfect medium for reappropriating and juxtaposing images from many sources and rearranging them as personal metaphors, analogies and ambiguities."

"A commune of women or suffragists—that’s what they already call us, with a cold laugh born of the insecurity of seeing us together: an insurmountable barrier, the group of us three."

"Women are the consumers in society, but they are also the consumed. My purpose in the work (Down Under Among The Women) is to confirm more than to deny and if women are still portrayed as sex objects in art and society, my aim is to recreate them as sex subjects. I use sexual imagery in the context of the female body in an attempt to reveal the tragedy and comedy of women's lives."

"There is not nearly enough change here, the men have not kept up with the women's movement. In America I found that male artists used feminist ideas in their work. I don't see that here at all. (Hillcoats' experience with the women's movement whilst living and working in North America versus Australia)"

"At the time of my writing, 30 years ago, I felt the works of artists like Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning were not sufficiently known or appreciated. The Bulletin provided a way of bringing these artists to the attention of a much wider audience. (about the importance of the Women's Art Register Bulletin and her own regular column ‘A Look At Books’ in it)"

"My work is for my own pleasure and fulfilment. I like to give form to my emotional and visual responses and to explore themes which reflect my attitudes as a socially concious woman artist."

"When I've travelled I've been attracted by the human presences imprinted in inanimate objects and structures and I prefer the freedom and directness of watercolours to recall these associations. (discussing the merits of watercolour as an art medium)"

"And once again, the three of us find ourselves together, just as we have in many times and decisions: refusing to be shadow, sedative, or warrior’s rest. Warriors, we—women whole in body and with a steady hand."

"Both. I think it causes problems, but it's something we must work with, as the North American women did. They included everyone instead of being exclusive. They had so much energy, and they were going parallel to the women's movement. It's a very difficult time now in Australia. We don't want to identify with North America because Australian women have a very different experience. (reflecting on her experience living and working in North America versus Australia, and as a direct answer to the questions: How do you feel at the thought of having contact with women in a Women's Art Movement who are not feminists? Does that seem exciting, or do you see it as causing a lot of problems?)"

"Only by opening up civic institutions, government and business to all, and challenging the unwritten rules that exclude so many from political participation, can we ensure lasting change in Sierra Leone."

"Other leaders, not least the current president, have offered visionary words but few have the track record of Julius Maada Bio of acting on their pledges."

"And we will ensure that contracts and business dealings by the government are made transparently, allowing for members of the Diaspora to have the confidence they can invest in their country knowing it is a nation led by an administration committed to transparency, equality and fairness."

"Only a new government can bring equality for women."

"We must tap this reservoir of intellect to re-energize our workforce and bring much needed skills to our fragile economy."

"This has not been helped by the politicization of the current government’s Diaspora office. Staffed entirely by members of President Koroma’s All-Peoples’ Congress party, it has become a largely partisan operation."

"So it is understandable that many in the Diaspora are uncertain whether to engage more substantially in investment and support for Sierra Leone under its current government, despite their love for their country."

"The Arab world doesn’t want to know it, and this comes out clearly today, when we see what’s happening in Libya with the return of the slave trade. This is the dark part of Arab history. Africans know it and remember it perfectly well."

"I believe that in Tunisia, and perhaps in all the Arab countries, the communist parties — for all their many mistakes and shortcomings — were the only place in which ethno-religious affiliations were overcome, which is an element that can’t be overlooked in my personal make-up. My childhood was not at all marked by that kind of segregation."

"How do I introduce myself? Every work, academic or research-based, rests one way or another on a personal make-up. If I wasn’t who I am, or I didn’t receive the make-up that I did, perhaps I wouldn’t have written what I wrote.”"

"Then history took its course, and the lives and fates of individuals were tied to the collective history, as is always the case in our countries, and the Jewish minority left the country, for numerous reasons."

"The older men's request was for the women to be faithful. This is an urban situation, and one of the problems we found out about early on in Entebbe, was that the man would come back and go to the beer place and drink. The woman, of course, being neglected at home would walk out and go to another place to drink and the children would be left alone. One of the women’ dramas showed that: one of the boys became a drug addict, the girl got pregnant and the parents had to resolve all the problems by getting back together."

"As I see it, the universal is besieged by the hegemony of the commodity and that of the religious. Two faces of globalisation that have nothing to do with the universal, that is anti-universal, which is a thesis I worked on in my book La Double Impasse, in which there are extensive sections on the culturalist and the essentialist."

"What the boys are saying, is that any boy seeing a beautiful girl would be excited, would be attracted to that girl, but the mini-skirt exposes so much of them that they find that they want to see more of the girls! That was their request. But then the community said of course, that there is freedom, freedom of what people can do: but that the young girls should know, they should not jump on any fashion that comes, they should know the risks they are taking in putting on things like that."

"One thing I learnt, I've never listened to people. It made me realise I'm a bad listener, it has tended to help me check on that. And as a facilitator it is important that my listening becomes very, very powerful. It helped me enormously to improve relationships between me and my son. We listen to each other a lot now."

"Of Course, also, we were surprised that those young people were there, but they had grouped themselves and they wanted to stay and of course our immediate reaction was 'these are too young' but their parents also said they wanted them to be involved. Now a number of them were orphans,who were being assisted by some of their relatives. Some, maybe one or two, had their parents, but the older people felt that these girls should be involved, because they know most of the facts from their health education program which is in their school curriculum. In their primary health education they meet with these things. So their involvement in this workshop would not only address some of their immediate problems, but also the future. They found it very useful."

"Those of the 14-16 year olds seem to have all been sexually abused, not that they have boyfriends, but they have been abused by men in society, in their community."

"We have reached a point when the female circumcision is discussed in the community and demystified"

"Instead of women of colour not being recognised within the movement at all, they’re now being ‘othered’ to such an extent that the white Western feminist is cast in the role of educated saviour, and women of colour cast in the roles of uneducated victims in desperate need of feminism as the white woman sees it."

"It involves cutting off the clitoris of girls of the same age in the community, usually by a traditional practitioner with crude instruments and without anesthesia."

"As current and past events show us, this is an extremely apt point. Let us not forget Germany's international human rights campaign ad which depicted a woman in a blue burqa posed next to blue trash bags. This picture and its role in advocating for women’s rights is discussed by Maya Dusenbery in Feministing, an online platform run by and for young feminists dedicated to viewing the world through a feminist lens."

"The picture couldn’t be any more clear; women wearing veils, hijabs or burqas are in need of the West’s superior morals, education and protection. Dusenbery aptly terms this campaign and the message behind it as ‘paternalistic bullshit.’ Campaigns such as this do the opposite of help women, they only serve to burden them with another obstacle to overcome, imposed by Westerners who refuse to listen with respect."

"We are confirming on this day our firm determination to fight a non-stop battle so that no single Burkina girl will be threatened by this practice of another age."

"Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) will open the discussion. He has studied Architecture and Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is published in newspapers and educational magazines and in fact is "the cartoonist for most newspapers." Milton Shain is Director of Jewish Studies at UCT and has written and edited many books on Jewish History. He has also received numerous awards both at Jerusalem and Yale Universities."

"Thank you for such a stimulating and often controversial presentation. As they say: "Three Jews, four different opinions"."

"I call myself a feminist because I am staunch believer in justice for women and the validity of women’s perspectives."

"We apologise for holding this meeting during the month of Ramadan. We have begun at 6.30 to allow the Parliamentarians to arrive. One of the functions of the Trust is to promote intellectual debate in post democratic South Africa. We produce a pamphlet of these monthly meetings. Many thanks to Leslie Liddell."

"Rural women inspire me. They are the passion of my life and I will do everything and anything for their empowerment. Their knowledge and expertise are crying for a receptive ear, for powerful questions that will unearth and challenge their wisdom."

"A fresh struggle to overcome new manifestations of patriarchy is constantly beginning; and it seems a matter of perpetuity."

"Build on the strength of women!"

"The change has been tremendous. People now know what the gender agenda is, they might fear it in some places, but they now know."

"Be persistent! Be professional! You don’t have to be aggressive; be persistent, and people will know who you are, where you stand, and what you can’t compromise on. Walk the talk!"

"If anything were to happen to me today, I have no worries because I know these young women will carry this struggle until we get it right."

"You have to keep your eyes sharp all the time and be very analytical. When you see something coming, you have to ask what it is and how it will affect women."

"Funded the State Council for Women's Conditions in the State of São Paulo and coordinated the State Commission for Education, Culture and Environment in the State of São Paulo"