Feminists From England

"[At HMP Pentonville where the visitors centre was closing] There was, for example, the case of a youngish woman with a large family who visited her husband every fortnight. Each time they came they returned to the centre in a more miserable state. One day they were in tears and the youngest child was sick. The woman said her husband was clearly ill. He had been wild and violent. Each visit he seemed to be getting worse. He was receiving no treatment. The centre called the assistant governor and asked for an urgent inquiry. He acted at once. The man was found to be in appalling state. He was rushed to the medical wing where he was diagnosed as having Huntington's Chorea, an hereditary disease which strikes suddenly in middle age, bringing insanity followed by death. The whole family had been watching, visit by visit, as their father went mad before their eyes. No doubt the prison officers did not like the implied criticism of their negligence. There were many other such incidents, though the centre was as careful as possible not to make the officers feel they were being criticised."

"Palestinians cannot live as subjugated citizens, and what is happening in Gaza now is an overwhelming tragedy."

"Obviously there have been some men in this argument who have lost work — most obviously Graham Linehan [...] But the vast, vast majority are women. It’s the women journalists who write about this who get singled out, whether it's myself or Sonia Sodha or Catherine Bennett or Helen Lewis. There are men who write about this — James Kirkup, David Aaronovitch, Matthew d'Ancona — but they've had nothing like the abuse that Julie Bindel has had or Suzanne Moore has had. It's totally a gendered thing. Which just goes to show that some people really do know what a woman is."

"He came from a public school, was the son of an old student of the dean ... [and] the only one with a distinctly sour school report. He was a big shambling clumsy looking young man. When asked, he said he had already been guaranteed an unconditional place at his father's hospital "Well, they could hardly turn you down. Could they?" said the Dean drily. ... Picking up the report, which indicated laziness... [d]id he really want to be a doctor? "Yes, I'm dead serious." What sort of doctor? "A country GP working on my own. I couldn't stick the routine of hospital life" ... [After the candidate left, the Dean and Consultant surgeon conducting the interviews discussed him] "What do you think?" the Dean asked the surgeon. "I knew his father, and he was just the same, but he's a very good doctor now." The surgeon laughed. "I would say that under no circumstances whatever would I admit him if it wasn't that you knew his father and you say he was the same." The Dean said, "Well, I'm happy to have him." I was surprised at the decision."

"The last candidate of the day was also the son of a doctor. The Dean knew his father too. "His father is a bright chap, but completely incomprehensible," he said. The boy was intense and serious but with a speech impediment. He spoke a great deal about the need for doctors to "Co-communicate" with their patients, which afterwards made the Dean smile. He spoke enthusiastically about the role of doctor as counsellor, pointing out that recent research indicated that GPs had to deal with people's psychological ailments as much as their physical wellbeing. ... Analysis of the school's drop-outs showed that the desire to do social work and a wish to bring about change in society to help the roots of patients problems was one of the main reasons for students failing to stay the course. This boy was turned down outright."

"I happened to be seeing my doctor the next day for a check-up so while he was down there I said, 'By the way, my wife and I have had a little disagreement, I am circumcised, aren't I?' He took a closer look and said, 'Not! I am Jewish, and definitely know the difference!'"

"There have enough people who been vilified in American politics to have American villains now, but it is a very American thing, to have British villains."

"If I get something wrong or if I'm late it's an act of wilfulness. This is not the case; it's disorganisation on my part."

"I'm good at being self-critical. I've also been told that I'm good at taking up new sports. I'm a fast learner and pick things up very quickly."

"If you’re talking about playing an iconic superhero, then there’s a huge pressure that comes with the expectations of what you do with that material, even though it’s fictitious. Obviously, if it’s someone that’s real, there’s the pressures and the rightful kind of responsibility of protecting a legacy. But they’re very, very different kinds of pressures. At the end of the day, it’s about trying to do a good job."

"Everything flat lines in my brain, to be honest. I don’t think much at all. I just sit there going, “Holy s**t!” It’s very rare that you stop to look back. What I’m trying to do, all the time, whatever I’m doing, is being in that present moment. I seem to have an appetite for life and I seem to have an appetite for work, so I keep going. I don’t really look back. So, to do that is a novel experience and quite a surreal one."

"What I try to look for is something that a general audience can relate to, to have an investment in these extraordinary people who achieve extraordinary things. That’s an easy task for an actor, to humanize these incredible machines of ideas that some of these people are. It’s not always easy, but that’s the challenge, and that’s what I’ve enjoyed doing. I’m very lucky."

"Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I'm also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated."

"Situations where what I say echoes much further than what is healthy. I would love to just have the work do the talking. We’re in positions where people ask us questions; they want to know about more than just the work. And it can go into areas where I’ve completely shot my mouth off, whether it’s too much about my private life or being too opinionated about things in the world. I think the better thing to do—I’ve learned this from people far wiser than me—is to do very good, quiet work behind closed doors."

"You know, I’m not a fan of horror. I’m a fan of some of those films, but I’m not a fan in the sense I find it very difficult to watch them. I’m very suggestible and gullible and I buy into what I’m watching and it just haunts me for too long afterwards. It just scares me for longer than the moment in the film. I don’t really like living a life in horror or terrors, other than that in the real world without my imagination creating more. Horror is not my genre go-to. It’s not my genre go to."

"I would say in compound sense of what little I know is it’s definitely darker in tone, and in terms of advice for taking kids of a certain age, it’s going to be prohibitive for certain people of a certain age because it is scary."

"It's time to start playing the smallest violin in the world for me right now. I was very lucky because I had other people's pets. I was like an uncle or godparent. You get all the benefits without any of the trauma. We had animals at school that we tended to, I don't know how they survived. I didn't go through the trauma of seeing them as babies and then going through their life cycle with them and the inevitable end. I love, love, love, love, love dogs. Cats, on the other hand... Don't ever do a film with them. They just wander around looking really unimpressed with everything. I love them, but working with them is really tough."

"It's part of the job to mythologise the experience, and you don't have to do that with this one. It's as easy as breath to talk about this one."

"I don’t know if watching your own work is a good or bad thing. I don’t know how much I learn from it. Each individual circumstance holds its own world of singularities and peculiarities. But among that, you can go: “Oh yeah, I remember that was what I tried to do.” Sometimes it doesn’t fit with the cast or the energy of the scene or the beat of another character. But to sit down in the audience and go: “Oh my God, I think that was what I intended”, was great."

"I was very, very into techno for a long time. That was my bag at uni. I went clubbing a lot and all sorts of nonsense ensued. Havok on a Friday was my favourite night because I just loved dancing."

"If I’m playing someone who’s smart, suddenly every character I’ve played is smart. If I’m playing a bad guy, every character is a bad guy. I suppose it’s that thing where people want to see a through-line to understand you. I mean, you know, I have played pretty ordinary people too."

"England is no longer controlled by Britons. We are under the invisible Jewish dictatorship — a dictatorship that can be felt in every sphere of life."

"Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful. (...) The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state."

"The Jewish conception of the Jews as the Chosen People who must eventually rule the world forms indeed the basis of Rabbinical Judaism. [...] The Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible."

"George Floyd's awful brutal death is what we should be talking about and addressing the racism, the discrimination and the inequalities black people face in my city, in our country and around the world. It's really important nobody's under any mistaken impression that it is acceptable to be abusive or violent towards police officers or even journalists."

"My wife and children can't open the door because they never know who is going to be behind it. I can't spontaneously decide to go see my mum, I've got to let the police know. I want to go back to normality; I miss it. I miss just being able to go out to the corner shop without police protection. I certainly hope I won't need protection for the rest of my life."

"Boston is among an increasing number of municipalities, universities, and private foundations that have announced plans to divest from fossil fuels. In late October, ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26, Auckland, New Zealand; Copenhagen, Denmark; Glasgow, Scotland; Paris; Rio de Janeiro; and Seattle announced commitments to divest from fossil fuel companies and increase investments to make cities more sustainable. Also last month, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott signed a bill that requires the city’s three pension funds to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Those are in addition to divestment commitments made last year by Berlin; Bristol, England; Cape Town, South Africa; Durban, South Africa; London; Los Angeles; Milan; New Orleans; New York City; Oslo; Norway; Pittsburgh; and Vancouver, Canada. “Cities are at the forefront of tackling the climate emergency and there is real momentum to move investments away from fossil fuels and toward climate solutions,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is chair-elect of C40 Cities, a network of mayors working to confront climate change, said in a statement. “I will continue to encourage more cities to join the movement, and urge national governments and private finance institutions to mobilize more finance to invest directly in cities to support a green and fair recovery.”"

"Elizabeth Blackwell had no interest in training separately from men. But others began to set up medical schools for women only, such as the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1868, the Blackwells bowed to pressure (and the ongoing lack of coeducational opportunities) and established the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Their work was a constant financial battle. Elizabeth struggled to attract benefactors and frequently clashed with potential allies."

"When Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine and put up her sign in New York, she was regarded as fair game, and was called a "she doctor." The college that had admitted her closed its doors afterward against other women; and supposed they were shut out forever. But Dr. Blackwell was a woman of fine intellect, of great personal worth and a level head. How good it was that such a woman was the first doctor! She was well equipped by study at home and abroad, and prepared to contend with prejudice and every opposing thing."

"Another way in which professionalization worked to the detriment of women can be seen in the cases of Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, Marie Zakrzewska, and Ann Preston, who despite their M.D.s and excellent training were denied access to hospitals, were refused recognition by county medical societies, and were denied customary referrals by male colleagues. Their experiences were similar to those of most of the pioneer women physicians."

"The anarchist-feminists' denial of gender-based distinctions precluded their use of many of the arguments for equality utilized by the mainstream feminists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, the followers of Catharine Beecher could demand access to the teaching profession on the grounds that the female nurturing instinct made women biologically better suited than men to educate the young. Elizabeth Blackwell sometimes used similar arguments in her attempts to open the medical profession to women."

"The subject of love is always of the most absorbing interest to the younger and more active portion of a people; sexual passion, in its ennobling or debasing form, exercises irresistible attraction."

"I am prepared for this. Prejudice is more violent the blinder it is...a work of the ages cannot be hindered by individual feeling. A hundred years hence women will not be what they are now."

"The essence of all religions is the recognition of an Authority higher, more comprehensive, more permanent than the human being. The characteristic of Christian teaching, however, is the faith that this Supreme Authority is beneficent as well as powerful. The Christian believes that the Creative Force is a moral force, of more comprehensive morality than the human being that it creates. Under the symbol of a wise and loving parent—the most just, efficient, and attractive image that we know of—we are encouraged to regard this unseen Authority as being in direct relation with every atom of creation, and as desirous of drawing each atom into progressively higher forms of existence."

"The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honourable term 'female physician' should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women."

"It was at this time that the suggestion of studying medicine was first presented to me, by a lady friend. This friend finally died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once said to me,'You are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.' But I at once repudiated the suggestion as an impossible one, saying that I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book. ... My favourite studies were history and metaphysics, and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust."

"If an idea, I reasoned, were really a valuable one, there must be some way of realising it. The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed great attraction for me."

"A serious difficulty in understanding how to educate and regulate the relations of sex arises from the fact that it is the relation of two equal but distinct halves of the human race, and exists in the dual form—male and female. Unless the distinctive characteristics and requirements of each of these equal halves are fully understood, the relation between them cannot be satisfactory."

"The people of Henderson were all very friendly to me personally, and my relations always pleasant with them; but the injustice of the state of society made a gradually deepening impression on my mind. The inhabitants lived in constant fear of an outbreak among the slaves. Women did not dare to walk in the pleasant woods and country around the village, for terror of runaway slaves. Painful social contrasts constantly forced themselves on my notice."

"In carrying on the grand work of improving national health, extirpating loathsome disease, discovering and removing the causes of disease, the distinction must be carefully drawn between the object to be accomplished and the means by which it shall be attained. The object is a grand one; the method of accomplishing it must be equally so, i.e., it must be guided by moral principle."

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women."

"The great importance to the nation of the prevalence of a high standard of morality in the body of the Medical Profession is evident from the confidential character of the services they are called on to perform. Very few are investigators or experimenters. The great majority become the trusted friends of the family in its time of greatest weakness and need."

"In 1845 when I resolved to become a physician, six eminent physicians, in different parts of the country were written to, for advice. They all united in dissuading me, stating, "That it was an utter impossibility for a woman to obtain a medical education; that the idea though good in itself, was eccentric and utopian, utter impracticable!" It was only by long-continued searching through all the colleges of the country, that one was at last found willing to grant admission. When I entered college in 1847, the ladies of the town pronounced the undertaking crazy, or worse and declared that they would die rather than employ a woman as a physician. In 1852, when establishing myself in New York there was the utmost difficulty in finding a boarding house where the simple name, as a physician could be placed; ladies would not reside in a house so marked, and expressed the greatest astonishment that it should be allowed in a respectable establishment."

"Every physician knows the numerous sources of error that may lead an able advocate to wrong conclusions. The difficult art of statistics, which is no simple arrangement of numbers, but often requires very elaborate calculations, may lend itself to error; the neglect of some facts, or the undue prominence of others, the comparison of dissimilar conditions, or observations made on too short a scale or for too short a period—all these various conditions must be considered as sources of possible error."

"There is no third path and that is the one we are going to take."

"Pathology is the place where history talks with its loudest most grating voice."

"In film and media I want to see short men with tall women."

"I would be spooning my 6'8" boyfriend. I'm the big spoon, obviously. He'll love that I said that."

"Truth is not always fair, or soft of speech, Nor can all minds grasp all that it can teach; But if despised, by men rejected now, The future's dawn illuminates its brow."

"Vegetariana is the name of an island where nobody ever kills animals for food or "sport." It is easy to guess how pleased the animals are in countries where the inhabitants decide to make the land a Vegetariana."