Collect Quotes from Men which encourage, embrace, empower Feminism

This one was sent to me by fateaccompli and I had to read it 3 times until I really got the message.
Definitely fitting for this goal!

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Every time I see a woman on a billboard sign
I think about you
Saying drink this beer and you’ll be mine
I think about you
When an actress on a movie screen
Plays lolita in some old mans dreams
It doesn’t matter who she is
I think about you

When I see a pretty woman walking down the street
I think about you
Men look her up and down like shes some kind of treat
I think about you
She wouldn’t dare talk to a stranger
Always has to be aware of the danger
It doesn’t matter who she is
I think about

Chorus:
You eight years old
Big blue eyes and a heart of gold
When I look at this world, I think about
You and I cant help but see
That every woman used to be
Somebody’s little girl, I think about you

Every time I hear people say its never gonna change
I think about you
Like its some kind of joke, some kind of game
I think about you
When I see a woman on the news
Who didn’t ask to be abandoned or abused
It doesn’t matter who she is
I think about

When I look at this world I think about you

This one is a tip from mybbt
(oka ^{once known as} unearthed, if I may add :) ).

I have cut the 2nd half off the lyrics. Reading this is different from listening to it, and the point gets made, imo. Several points; good points. Imo. :)

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Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too

Consider the fact that
Maybe you’ve been brainwashed too
Many will tell you otherwise
I bet you trust your bank
Just wait until it tanks
Your parents had it planned
We’re almost like them?
Fun, racist professional sports
Management gets the real rewards
Multi-national owned evening news
If we believe we’re fools
You watch 4.5 hours of tv a day
And we should listen to what you say?
Opinions on life and the world
You eat at the hard rock abroad and disrespect your girl
Sexism is so ingrained
That women get the blame
Is it smug middle-class satisfaction you peddle?
Better hope your car don’t break down in the ghetto
Rich companies lobby best
Use their products, prepare to lose a breast
Why your sick mother’s health insurance got
Accidentally canceled is no mystery
Somebody’s paying the government a lot
To have access to everybody’s medical history
Greedy banks bought all the farms
Chemical food, aren’t our lives charmed
Teenagers baited, their money spent
With credit cards at twenty percent
Too broke to worry about the loan
Their funkin turning off your phone

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Here’s the link again :)

Children know the truth.
Love is not an emotion.
Love is a behavior.

This is not specially about feminism. This is about life.
Andrew Vachss is a man who simply encourages, embraces and empowers.

I’ve known (and immensely enjoyed) many of his books for a long time, and later learned about his work as an attorney for children.
He has come to my mind these days as I attended a small seminar about trauma, what it does to the brain and mind, how to work with it (as an occupational therapist); what to do, what to avoid.
I’ve been searching the web on that subject for one night and one day now, and of course I came across Andrew Vachss; again.

He is tough.
He is cool.
He is clear, determined and stern.
He is DOING something—he is doing a lot!
And he loves dogs. :)

I have learned much from him.

Eg. the difference between “sick” and “evil”.

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The difference between sick and evil cannot be dismissed with facile eye-of-the-beholder rhetoric. There are specific criteria we can employ to give us the answers in every case, every time.

[...]

The truth is as simple as it is terrifying:

Sickness is a condition.

Evil is a behavior.

Evil is always a matter of choice. Evil is not thought; it is conduct. And that conduct is always volitional.

And just as evil is always a choice, sickness is always the absence of choice. Sickness happens. Evil is inflicted.

Until we perceive the difference clearly, we will continue to give aid and comfort to our most pernicious enemies. We, as a society, decide whether something is sick or evil. Either decision confers an obligation upon us. Sickness should be treated. Evil must be fought.

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Vachss’ site : THE ZERO

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To call him a feminist would be absurd. After I read his biography I was really sad and sorry for his wife, who had to abandon her musical career, her social life, her church to be only the professor’s Luthien.
He had Oxford, his clubs, his profession.
She had kids, kitchen and kirk (his) church.

Anyway, there is that part in LotR that impressed and inspired me as a young girl.
It is, of course, Eowyn (in conversation with Aragorn)

‘You are a stern lord and resolute,’ she said; ‘and thus do men win renown.’ She paused. ‘Lord.’ she said, ‘if you must go, then let me ride in your following. For I am weary of skulking in the hills, and wish to face peril and battle.’
‘Your duty is with your people,’ he answered.
‘Too often have I heard of duty,’ she cried. ‘But am I not of the House of Eorl, a shieldmaiden and not a dry-nurse? I have waited on faltering feet long enough. Since they falter no longer, it seems, may I not now spend my life as I will?’
‘Few may do that with honour,’ he answered. ‘But as for you, lady: did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord’s return? If you had not been chosen, then some marshal or captain would have been set in the same place, and he could not ride away from his charge, were he weary of it or no.’
‘Shall I always be chosen?’ she said bitterly. ‘Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?’
‘A time may come soon,’ said he, ‘when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.’
And she answered: ‘All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.’
‘What do you fear, lady?’ he asked.
‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’

Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, “How can you listen to this stuff and not reconize it for what it is?”

From his book Ishmael

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Thanks to fateaccompli for that quote and by it inspiring me to adopt this goal in the first place!

P.S.
I don’t know Daniel Quinn, btw, so I looked him up on Wikipedia, and I think I am not d’accord with all he says. But this goal is about quotes, and I love that quote!

Die Frau der neuen Gesellschaft ist sozial und ökonomisch vollkommen unabhängig, sie ist keinem Schein von Herrschaft und Ausbeutung mehr unterworfen, sie steht dem Manne als Freie, Gleiche gegenüber und ist Herrin ihrer Geschicke.

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My clumsy translation (-> goal: Improve my English):

“Woman of the new society is socially and economically entirely independent, she’s not subject to any mastery or exploitation, she faces man as a free and equal and is master* of her fortune.”

*‘mistress’ seems awkward to me. Or should I have used it?

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There is more, much more by Bebel, a whole book. :)

from their CD Business of Punishment (1994)

Quite a hardcore start!
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written by Consolidated and Jack Dangers:

born of a woman

i wake up and look around me
manmade tragedy surrounds me
everywhere i look
the remains of women that men took
on billboards and t.v. see women’s ass
reduced to the lowest class
i guess i was hallucinating
in a world where there’s no woman hating
long before his god was male
matriarchal law prevailed
nature humankind connected
from the earth our needs collected
but then somewhere the pattern changed
from that point on it’s all deranged
men’s aggression brought an order
history became distorted…

born of a woman
and when i die
it’s back to her i’m coming

no more symbiosis
just psychosis
and then the words of moses
finally closed the door
on everything we knew before
i domesticated land and cattle
subordinated you like chattel
possess undress detest you
scientifically i test you
burned you for being devil’s witches
beat you for being hoes and bitches
persecute you for centuries
now should this make sense to me
each of us of woman born
yet i viewed you with such scorn
and contempt and i attempt
to bury you beneath cement

born of a woman
and I feel your inner rhythm pumping

thousand year recovery
journey of discovery
skilled as midwives and as healers
not as whores for pimps a dealers
can i learn to understand you
not command you or reprimand you
just learn to love you
and in all things see the beauty of you
as i walk along this street
a tree is breaking trough concrete
symbolizes best your courage
strength of will and your endurance
a baby in her mother’s arms
warm protected safe from harm
knows this woman who has kissed her
is someone’s mother daughter sister…

she is
born of a woman and when she dies
it’s back to you she’s coming

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Oh yes, there are.

Are they more important than quotes by women?

No. We don’t need men to empower ourselves!

BUT!

It is encouraging and heart warming to have our brothers by our side.

To create a wholesome culture we gotta work together.

Also:

I might add quotes from guys that aren’t really into feminism.
And I’ll quote out context.

My only criteria for picking quotes are:

• must be a quote from a man
• must be I quote that I, personally, find empowering and delightful and useful for my form of feminism.

And I encourage and appreciate any tip, quote and comment from you people!