feminists-from-the-united-kingdom

"Sexual Politics by Kate Millett [published in 1970]. The box was open, the genie was out and I couldn’t put it back in."

"I want to do this well."

"The strongest lessons you get in life are normally the negative ones."

"Self-awareness about what you do, why you do it and when you do it, is what is so important."

"Invest in memories. It’s ultimately what life is about—people, places, moments and experiences."

"“Stop benchmarking yourself against other successful entrepreneurs or business people—it wastes valuable energy! Your personality and circumstances are unique and there is no right or wrong way to grow an innovative business.”"

"“Learn from others’ experiences and be inspired by them, but also make your own rules and navigate your own path.”"

"“Sometimes it’s the right decision to end a particular course of action or working relationship, but I now make a more concerted effort to salvage or reverse a situation.”"

"“Trust your gut instinct as much if not more than the numbers, and surround yourself with people who you respect and enjoy working with.”"

"“The occasional error of judgment or wrong move can often move your business faster than the right ones… About-turns are not weak, they’re strong and demonstrate good leadership, but they need to happen quickly and be communicated decisively.”"

"“If you’re fortunate enough to have a product or service that you can trade for another, then ‘in kind’ deals can help a lot with cash flow in the early days.”"

"“My path to entrepreneurialism was more a default necessity out of the fact that I wasn’t very good at being someone else’s employee combined with this constant thirst to ‘disrupt’ and ultimately, and most importantly… luck.”"

"Pregnant with my first, I remember thinking I’d probably be having a boy, which I put down to inbuilt patriarchal bias – boys come first, in the sexist world that surrounds us. The baby was Rosie. Second time around, my expectation was that I’d have a boy this time, which was perhaps based on the law of probability; the new arrival was Elinor. Third time around, I was convinced I was having a boy, but the person who emerged was Miranda. And by the time I got to Catriona, I was absolutely certain I’d be having another girl – and I was."

"The political activities of Henry Asquith's daughter, Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, are of course well-known. Her father—old, supplanted in power, his Party broken up, his authority flouted, even his long-faithful constituency estranged—found in his daughter a champion redoubtable even in the first rank of Party orators. The Liberal masses in the weakness and disarray of the Coalition period saw with enthusiasm a gleaming figure, capable of dealing with the gravest questions and the largest issues with passion, eloquence and mordant wit. In the two or three years when her father's need required it, she displayed force and talent equalled by no woman in British politics. One wildfire sentence from a speech in 1922 will suffice. Lloyd George's Government, accused of disturbing and warlike tendencies, had fallen. Bonar Law appealed for a mandate of ‘Tranquillity.’ "We have to choose," said the young lady to an immense audience, "between one man suffering from St. Vitus's Dance and another from Sleeping Sickness." It must have been the greatest of human joys for Henry Asquith in his dusk to find this wonderful being he had called into the world, armed, vigilant and active at his side. His children are his best memorial, and their lives recount and revive his qualities."

"The recognition of the sanctity of treaties is surely the most vital of all British interests. But in signing the Covenant we pledged ourselves to do more than defend British interests. We undertook to uphold a common law of honour and good faith among nations. It is true that some signatories have since left the League, but in spite of their defection we have remained, and our obligations, backed by our signed word, remain with us... I believe that war can be prevented now if every nation still within the League is prepared to carry out its obligations. War is inevitable sooner or later if this cold-blooded experiment in international anarchy is successfully carried through before a watching world. It is an example which some will not be slow to follow, and Europe may be their playground instead of Africa."

"After the war I was one of those who thought, who hoped, who believed that Force had had its day, that Armies and Navies and Air Forces would dwindle away and disappear – discarded like broken toys that men had outgrown. But to-day – look at the world. To-day we see a world which has put back the clock, a world which is reeling backwards away from law, away from freedom, back to the triumph of the aggression of Italy – and the agony of its victim. In that struggle the public opinion of the whole civilized world was solidly ranged against the aggressor. What was the use? Public opinion proved powerless against poison gas. And I think the lessons we have learned from these defeats of law is that it is no good passing judgement unless you are ready to enforce it. It is no good giving a great moral lead if it is to be followed by a rapid physical scuttle. Justice cannot rule this world armed with the scales alone – in her other hand she must hold a sword. Unless we, the free democracies of the world, who are still loyal members of the League, are prepared to stand together and to take the same risks for Justice, Peace and Freedom as others are prepared to take for the fruits of aggression – then our cause is lost – and the Gangsters will inherit the earth."

"We meet in a very dark hour. The events of the last 3 weeks have shattered what remained of that new world-order which some of us have hoped & worked & striven to build for 20 years. They have done more. They have broken a great & honourable tradition of English foreign policy to which this country has adhered through changing Governments & changing parties for centuries. The keystone of that policy has been the refusal to truckle to the strong at the expense of the weak. We have consistently thrown the whole weight of our power behind justice for the weak – against the domination of any single power. This policy which the smaller states of Europe have owed their freedom & their existence has been renounced to-day. When the Prime Minister signed the Munich Agreement he renounced for us all claims to moral leadership. We ceased to be the trustee of a standard of justice & decency in international relationships. We made our formal submission to the rule of Force – & that rule with the acquiescence & sanction of our Government is the only rule that runs in Europe to-day. All this is hailed as a triumph by its supporters. I do not believe that any Peace worthy of the name can be built upon an act of flagrant injustice backed by Force."

"I am one of millions who watching the martyrdom of Hungary and listening yesterday to the transmission of her agonized appeals for help (immediately followed by the description of our "successful bombing" of Egyptian "targets") have felt a humiliation, shame, and anger which are beyond expression. At a moment when our moral authority and leadership are most direly needed to meet this brutal assault on freedom we find ourselves bereft of both by our own Government's action. For the first time in our history our country has been reduced to moral impotence. We cannot order Soviet Russia to obey the edict of the United Nations which we ourselves have defied, nor to withdraw her tanks and guns from Hungary while we are bombing and invading Egypt. To-day we are standing in the dock with Russia. Like us she claims to be conducting a "police action." We have coined a phrase which has already become part of the currency of aggression. Never in my life-time has our name stood so low in the eyes of the world. Never have we stood so ingloriously alone. Our proud tradition has been tragically tarnished. We can restore it only by repudiating as a nation that which has been done in our name but without our consent—by changing our Government or its leadership."

"There are days when you wish things could be different, but ultimately I can’t not do feminism and I don’t want to live with inequality, so I can’t really regret it. I think what happened to me was a bit of a wake-up call for society at large, it was a pretty high price I had to pay but it wasn’t completely pointless because [abuse is] something that we now talk about and we’re trying to figure out."

"One of the big problems with the way we’ve laid out cities is that they’ve been laid out in such a way to serve the needs of this mythical male breadwinner who has a wife home in the suburbs…And it’s completely untrue to how women and people live their lives. They’ve got to take kids to the doctor, to school, get groceries, check in on a relative …all the things we are doing on a daily basis requires a lot of complicated logistics."

"We're used to the idea that women aren't represented in our culture and media and politics and films. The idea that this extended to what was sold as objective - the idea of medicine and science, that they were also underrepresenting women - was just mind-blowing to me."

"I found it very shocking and worrying in one study that looked at male and female cells and exposed them both to estrogen and to a virus. The female cell was able to use the estrogen to fight off the virus, and the male cell wasn’t able to use the estrogen and the virus took over. That was so tantalizing and also so infuriating because the vast majority of human cell studies are still done on male cells. When you look at a study like that, you can’t help thinking about how many more treatments we have ruled out at the cell stage because we only tested it on male cells."