Women Activists From The United States

"The value of the movement does not depend upon whether it is voted up or voted down; its importance depends on whether it is fundamentally right or not, and the heart of the human race is bound to be ultimately fundamentally right."

"I delete Instagram from my phone probably twice a week. I try to stay away from it as much as possible, but it's hard because now it's how young people connect. The important thing to remember is that social media isn't real and so much of what is being advertised isn't authentic or necessarily the best for your well-being, so you have to take social media with a grain of salt."

"I've never played such an iconic character who's someone that I grew up respecting so much. So I think, when you respect someone so much, you just want to do right by them and right by everybody else who fell in love with her for a very good reason."

"The way I interact with the world—my work, interacting with people, decision-making—comes from a place of love and light. Especially when it comes to talking about politics, current events, and social justice. I speak out in a positive way out of a place of love to bring people together in discussing important issues without hatred."

"I actually almost stopped acting to pursue soccer instead."

"I could not be more ecstatic. I say it over and over, but it really is such a surreal feeling, especially with such an iconic brand, that I have looked up to for such a long time. Also, it’s great because they already have such a diverse roster of faces. You have the Kerry Washingtons, the Jennifer Garners … so to become one of those faces and be part of a company that not only embraces diversity but also embraces powerful women who use their voice, which is something that I try to exercise whenever I possibly can, it’s a beautiful feeling."

"Whatever issue I've ever had to discuss with her whether it is on legislation or party politics or even literally, like, child rearing, she's very upfront and she doesn't try to say something that sounds flowery. She just is very direct and gives you the truth and really gives good advice"

"From our perspective it’s branding and working to define her statewide that Rosen would go from a clone of Nancy Pelosi to a clone of Elizabeth Warren"

"Maybe we do need new people, who worked in business, people who aren’t tainted by Washington, to get in there and actually figure out ways to solve problems, I think people like Heller are in Washington for so long it becomes ‘What can I do to stay in office’ instead of ‘What can I do that supports the people in Nevada"

"I assured her from the beginning that she most certainly could, that she not only had the internal tools necessary to do the job, but that she had the personality, the characteristics that would make her an outstanding congresswoman"

"It was so devastating to me as a Jewish woman, as an American, as a person of faith, somewhere that you think is a sanctuary and worship, you should feel safe there"

"Whether it's churches, synagogues or mosques, our schools, our movie theaters, a concert on a nice fall night, people should feel safe and not feel under attack. And so I'm concerned by the rhetoric. We can disagree on policy, that doesn't mean we have to be disrespectful, and it doesn't mean we should be ramping up this divisiveness that's going on"

"Even though she’s fresh and doesn’t have a record, I don’t know if she’ll be tough enough to beat Heller, I don’t think she’s ever really taken a punch. We don’t know if she has a glass jaw or not"

"She never met a person she didn’t know. She’s very outgoing, friendly, loves to connect people one to another. That just comes naturally"

"There’s lots of kinds of experiences that people have in life, just because someone’s been in the political arena for a lot of years doesn’t give them the exclusive right to talk about people’s experience"

"We make the joke we’re like Noah’s Ark, you have to join two by two, so you get Republicans and Democrats to stay equal"

"Sen. Heller has been in public office around Nevada for nearly 30 years, so he’s been around Nevada, but it’s difficult to point to any legislation that’s passed with his name on it, he’s going to have to stand on his record, he’s going to have to shine a spotlight on what he’s been doing and what he stands for"

"It’s really hard to run for Senate. It’s a very important job and you have to be 100 percent sure that you know, in your heart, why you’re doing it, what it means to you, because that’s the only way you can really commit to the hard work that it takes"

"Now, in the acting world, you see a lot more of the "all ethnicities" roles out there. I see more of my fellow Latinas rising up, and that makes me very proud. There are not as many Hispanic leading ladies out there as I would like, but I want to help change that in the future. I am blessed with the opportunities I have been given and I am extremely proud of where I come from. I would not have it any other way."

"A man will say, ‘Oh, there’s that job, I’m going for it.’ A woman says, ‘Well, geez, maybe I need three more classes in college.’ Right? A woman is always worried that they’re not prepared enough and men just go for it"

"What he needs to do is be a real leader and stand up and have empathy and try to talk to people in a way that honors the loss of lives, the loss of their loved ones, their memories"

"The more life you live, the more experiences you have, and they do shape and inform you in really important ways. What you do for a career is one part of who you are, but it’s not all of who you are"

"If eliminating the filibuster is what it takes to get it done, then we must protect our democracy at all costs."

"Every one of us, everyone who's running, everyone who cared, all of these stories, each and every one of us has a story that brought us here today, but it's our shared values and our shared commitment to social justice and social action and what's good and right and kind that brought us here to this point"

"If you’re working on membership and you’re talking to people who want to join or you’re working at the preschool, the religious school, people just start talking to you, good and bad, about what they think, what their desires are, what their hopes, what they’re worried about"

"Tourism is important. It's a key economic driver for every state in this nation"

"I think it's not just an act of public health and safety, but really an act of kindness to the people that you love, our friends and our neighbors"

"To strengthen our capabilities in emerging technologies, we must invest in long-term workforce development and research."

"So for me, the people that I worked with, even though I worked with the majority of men in one area, and in tech support of the gas company, all men, you are respected because of your work … I mean, there’s still corporate politics and other things that all women deal with generally, but the guys that I worked with, you’re as good as your code"

"For my generation, you would think you’d have to be on a particular trajectory to do something and then you would have to check those boxes off and once you were on a path you were kind of on a path, right"

"Stopping and taking a moment to realize how blessed you are changes everything."

"It is always easier to battle strangers than one's family."

"The Chicana is "together" but her progress is not commensurate with her her goals as a woman. The two great barriers to her achievement are: 1) the opportunism in the women's movement that has forced lower priorities to be set on public policy and governmental programming for minority populations and the poor, and 2) the conservatism of Chicano males."

"Minorty women could fill volumes with examples of put-downs, put-ons, and out-and-out racism shown to them by the leadership of the [women's] movement."

"Jane Addams and others spoke and acted on behalf of women labor leaders like Lucy Parsons, assisting them in rallies, providing bail when they were arrested, and using their tremendous power and influence on behalf of working women."

"Although many social workers like Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and Sophonisba P. Breckenridge, and socialists like Emma Goldman advocated the rights of immigrants and working women, in most instances during the 1890 to 1910 period their advocacy had little or no effect on the suffragist movement's attitude toward minority or working-class women"

"One of the first Chicanas to come into contact with the suffragist movements in the 1880s was Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, a Chicana socialist labor organizer."

"the promotion of barriers to universal suffrage such as literacy and educational requirements disenfranchised Black women, Chicanas, and poor and immigrant women until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

"We cannot hide the facts from men any longer. We will not use the proverbial shawl to protect them from reality. There is a new revolution to face together, a new independence to be fought for, together."

"Chicanas' involvement with the women's movement in the 1890 to 1920 period was limited by the barriers that impeded all women with similar backgrounds: the antilabor, antiminority attitudes of the leadership of the women's movement. They were affected also by the antisocialist and anticommunist attitudes of the movement in the early twentieth century, since many Chicana workers and leaders were ardent socialists."

"like Chicanas today, the women found, then, that while few battles were won in civil rights on behalf of their communities, fulfillment and the gains of the women's movement were never their gains. The suffragist movement had been manipulated since the 1870s to benefit those that eventually benefitted from it and noone else."

"The greatest victory for the women's movement was not victory for minority women. The suffrage amendment did not enfranchise Chicanas and black women. Chicanas were affected by the aftermath of the suffrage amendment, when women's movement activities slowed down, because white women achieved their desires, but Chicanas, like other minority women, had to continue to struggle for mere survival. They were affected when middle-class women were given preferential treatment in war industry, but blacks and Chicanas had to continue with unskilled, low-paid agricultural work and other service occupations. Chicanas were affected when white middle-class women went back home in the fifties, but minority women did not, and Chicanas, to boot, continued to suffer repression and deportation for their continued labor and civil rights advocacy. Chicanas have been affected when their community and their own gains in the 1960s have taken a back seat to the women's movement just as the black movement and black suffrage took a back seat to the suffrage movement in the latter part of the last century."

"Media, communication, and group action are urgently needed if we're going to control our lives in the Eighties and beyond."

"Hispanas and Hispanos together must confront the subject of equal rights. No one else is going to come in and resolve the situation for us."

"as long as Hispanos are not prepared to deal with women's equality they will be handicapped in their relationship with Hispanas."

"Our strategies should be aimed at educational institutions-those depositories for young people where racism, extreme chauvinism, and anti-female feeling is the strongest. We need to address ourselves aggressively to educational textbooks in which Hispanas are the invisible minority."

"Hispanas should no longer leave unchallenged the irresponsible expressions of ideologies and rhetoric that both disregard the basic tenet of individual worth and ignore women's continued contribution to culture and to the political, artistic, and intellectual evolution of the Hispanidad. Until we do this, the detractors of womankind will continue to promote bastardized machismo as basic and inevitable in the Hispanic culture. Unless we do this, the majority society, and many of our own people, will continue their fantasized portrayals of Hispanas as objects; passive nonentities, social reactionaries, and nonproductive members of society."

"Chicana feminist activities in the 1904 to 1920 period were channeled through civil rights activities and labor organization work. Some outstanding women were Jovita Idar, a journalist and civil rights worker from Laredo, Texas; Soledad Peña, orator and educator; María Renteria; and María Villarreal. These women were speakers and participants in a historical civil rights conference, the Primer Congreso Mexicanista. On October 15, 1911 they also founded the Liga Femenil Mexicanista."

"one of the challenges for Hispanas in the Eighties is to raise the consciousness of the community toward full and equal rights for all persons regardless of sex, to claim rights to personhood, which our Indian and Hispanic cultural heritage has never denied us."

"we must maintain the perspective that our overriding priority must be the redemption of the documented history of the Hispanic woman-a history rendered illegible by the cultural, sociological, economic, and political confrontations between colonizer and native of the New World."