Sexual Equality Quotes & Sayings

The novel had reached its apogee with the marriage plot and had never recovered from its disappearance. In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money, novelists had had a subject to write about. The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma married if she could file for separation later? How would Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond have been affected by the existence of a prenup? As far as Saunders was concerned, marriage didn't mean much anymore, and neither did the novel. Where could you find the marriage plot nowadays? You couldn't. You had to read historical fiction. You had to read non-Western novels involving traditional societies. Afghani novels, Indian novels. You had to go, literarily speaking, back in time. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Our Arab mothers and sisters are suffering from injustices like domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriages and honour killings, some are still fighting for their right to drive or travel without male custody therefore our powerful Arab media was not only expected to broadcast this particular one of a kind Women's march it should have held panels to dissect the issues being brought forth in order for the Arab world to better understand that gender equality is not an idea that one believes in, it is a planned movement that requires an enormous effort on the part of both men and women to reach. — Aysha Taryam

I oppose same-sex marriage but I would advance equal rights in employment for gay and lesbian people. I appointed a few judges who were gay and I had few people in my cabinet that I found out were gay. I never asked peoples sexual orientation. — Mitt Romney

Often ignored by civil rights historians, a number of campaigns led to trials and even convictions throughout the South. These cases, many virtually unknown, broke with Southern tradition and fractured the philosophical and political foundations of white supremacy by challenging the relationship between sexual domination and racial equality. — Danielle L. McGuire

The more equality women have, the fairer, more civilized and tolerant society will be. Sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength. — Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

I've also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand. — Anderson Cooper

Oh really?" Megan said while waggling her eyebrows. "What skills are we talking about and which room are they useful in?" Ella rolled her eyes at her little sister. "Megan, you just single handedly set the women's movement back twenty years." "Oh, Ella, on the contrary. The women's movement involves many theories of women taking back their sexual prowess in the bedroom as a way to challenge the dominant alpha male in the relationship. Seeing women as sexual equals is a very relevant and useful tool for the advancement of the equality for women in all realms of society. — Anie Michaels

For women as a class, the ability to transform sexual practice, to achieve respect from men as equal human beings and thus break out of their subordinate status, is undermined by the ability of men to escape from the responsibility of acknowledging women's equality. Men's use of women in prostitution stands directly in the way of women's efforts to improve their status. — Sheila Jeffreys

Indeed, girls can be so in need of social approval that they confuse harassment for acceptance
thinking that any attention is better than none. Since many girls as well as boys buy the idea that sexual aggression and exploitation is normal masculine behavior, it may not even occur to them to demand to be treated as equals. — Leora Tanenbaum

Some girls bragged to me that they could "have sex like a guy," by which they meant they could engage without emotion, they could objectify their partners as fully and reductively as boys often objectified them. That seemed a sad, low road to equality. What if, instead, they expected boys to be as sexually giving as girls? What if they were taught that all sexual partners, whether total strangers or intimates, deserved esteem and generosity, just as people do in any human interaction? What if they refused to settle for anything less? — Peggy Orenstein

Gender is not only women and sexual orientation has multiple choices. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

Sure that there was an attainable bliss somewhere beyond the decimal point in the p of his sexual trysts, I felt that maybe he had already attained what I was looking for, a more instinctual regard for sex, an equality among thirsts. He had done what I wanted to do: washed the wound of appetite in a relentless waterfall of sweat and semen. — Tom Cardamone

Repression is a seamless garment; a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual codes, which crushes its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and propriety, breeds repressions of other kinds as well. — Salman Rushdie

An America where every person, no matter their race, their disability or their sexual orientation realizes the full promise of equality that is our birthright as Americans. — Bernie Sanders

It is necessary to realize that the most sacrosanct article of sexual politics in the period, the Victorian doctrine of chivalrous protection and its familiar protestations of respect, rests upon the tacit assumption, a cleverly expeditious bit of humbug, that all women were "ladies" - namely members of that fraction of the upper classes and bourgeoisie which treated women to expressions of elaborate concern, while permitting them no legal or personal freedom. The psycho-political tacit here is a pretense that the indolence and luxury of the upper-class woman's role in what Veblen called "vicarious consumption" was the happy lot of all women. The efficacy of this maneuver depends on dividing women by class and persuading the privileged that they live in an indulgence they scarcely deserve ... To succeed, both the sexual revolution and the Woman's Movement which led it would have to unmask chivalry and expose its courtesies as subtle manipulation. — Kate Millett

The 'gens du monde' [for whom Boucher painted] celebrated an ideal of sociability, politesse, and reciprocity that insisted on the equality of men and women and de-emphasized sexual difference. In its entertainments, in its art, and even in its social reality, 'le monde' delighted in gender play - in mistaken identities, in cross-dressing disguise, in unresolved ambiguities and dualities. — Melissa Hyde

As a child of the millennial generation, I was raised in a society in which we were under the misconception that women and men had reached equality. With the exception of very few matriarchal societies, women were more liberated than they had ever been in history. In America's middle class, basic education was practically handed to us. We have the ability to obtain a higher education and career without men. So it took me nearly a decade after becoming sexually active to realize that, as a woman, I was socially oppressed. I grew up in a world where a woman's abstinence until marriage was highly praised and if she must participate in premarital sex, to limit that activity to as few partners as possible. It was considered tacky to openly discuss my sexual encounters. I was also taught that, as a woman, I was hormonally programmed to be more emotional than men. If I had sex with a man, I was supposed to feel some sort of intimate attachment. If I didn't, I was a cruel-hearted slut. — Maggie Young

The practice of women being liable to seek, wholesale and as a feminist entitlement, the 'liberty' of laying themselves open to abuse of a sexual, physical, spiritual and psychological nature from men exists only in the minds of those who do not (or will not) grasp the basic premise of feminism, which is the liberation of women, followed by the promotion of female equality, sexual self-governance included. Sexual self-governance is only possible for anyone where they are not influenced to make decisions regarding their sexuality based on circumstances beyond their control. Quite clearly, the necessary conditions for authentic sexual autonomy do not exist in the prostitution experience. — Rachel Moran

Thirty years on, femininity is still compulsory for women - and has become an option for men - while genuine femaleness remains grotesque to the point of obscenity. Meanwhile, the price of the small advances we have made towards sexual equality has been the denial of femaleness as any kind of a distinguishing character. — Germaine Greer

Something unexpected seemed to clear away between us, and, for a second, it seemed there was absolutely no difference in age between us, just two men kissing, and even this seemed to dissolve, as I began to feel we were not even two men, just two beings. — Andre Aciman

When the Majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on "men wearing dresses" or "men who want their penises cut off" that is not transphobia- it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults omitted against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia- it is trans-misogyny. — Julia Serano

The effect of legalised prostitution on women outside prostitution is to lower the status of all women. Women are recognised by the state in this system as the appropriate objects of male penetration with no consideration for their personhood or pleasure. This teaches that the penetration and use of an unwilling woman is 'sex', an idea that lies at the root of sexual violence against women in general. There is no chance of developing a sexuality of equality in which women's pleasure, right to say no, and bodily integrity are respected whilst the violence of prostitution is allowed to continue with state support for men's behaviour. — Sheila Jeffreys

Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy. Got that, fellas? If you're unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don't blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth and status. Then watch what happens. — Cacilda Jetha

The great paradox of the civil rights revolution is that instead of enforcing and expanding equality before the law, the revolution created differential rights based on race, gender and, any day now, sexual orientation. The great liberal revolution, centuries in the making, that brought forth equality in law has been overthrown. In its place we see rising a new feudal legal order of status-based rights. — Paul Craig Roberts

Feminism is ridiculous. Feminists are silly idealists who want to be on top. There is no real equality in sexual relationships - someone always wins. — Mary McCarthy

Perhaps MacKinnon should reflect on these suggestions that the censorship issue is not so simple-minded, so transparently gender-against-gender, as she insists. She should stop calling names long enough to ask whether personal sensationalism, hyperbole, and bad arguments are really what the cause of sexual equality now needs. — Ronald Dworkin

Women's liberation and empowerment are terms feminists started using to talk about casting off the limitations imposed upon women and demanding equality. We have perverted these words. The freedom to be sexually provocative or promiscuous is not enough freedom; it is not the only 'women's issue' worth paying attention to. And we are not even free in the sexual arena. We have simply adopted a new norm, a new role to play: lusty, busty exhibitionist. There are other choices. If we are really going to be sexually liberated, we need to make room for a range of options as wide as the variety of human desire. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to figure out what we internally want from sex instead of mimicking whatever popular culture holds up to us as sexy. That would be liberation. — Ariel Levy

When we talk about feminism - equality without apology for all - we can't be talking about for all white women or all highly educated women but all women, regardless of color, class, creed, sexual orientation or identity. — Christine Pelosi

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality.' As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits
barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them. — Ian Fleming

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables. — Catharine A. MacKinnon

It should not be a surprise to find that s/m fantasy is significant in women's sex lives. Women may be born free but they are born into a system of subordination. We are not born into equality and do not have equality to eroticise. We are not born into power and do not have power to eroticise. We are born into subordination and it is in subordination that we learn our sexual and emotional responses. It would be surprising indeed if any woman reared under male supremacy was able to escape the forces constructing her into a member of an inferior slave class. — Sheila Jeffreys

The speaker was good, I liked what he had to say. I had expected a dry recitation on how women should change their gender if they expected to advance in a man's world, since I wasn't about to grow a cock and balls this man gave me hope and inspiration. Women dominated the audience, not surprising since the average African man wouldn't support a speaker preaching gender equality. Africa was a continent with generational precedent for the alpha male, it was part of their culture, learned at an early age. This led to abuse on many levels. Women were expected to do the physical work, produce male babies and satisfy the sexual urgings of men. Urgings that in other societies would be called rape but in Africa were accepted as common practice. I understood this better than most. Pictures of the Kony boy-soldiers and their adult commander were burned into my memory. — Nick Hahn

A commitment to sexual equality with men is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered. — Andrea Dworkin

Each incident of sexual harassment of woman at workplace results in violation of the fundamental rights of "Gender Equality" and the "Right to Life and Liberty". It is a clear violation of the rights under Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution. One of the logical consequences of such an incident is also the violation of the victim's fundamental right under Article 19(1)(g). The meaning and content of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution of India are of sufficient amplitude to encompass all the facets of gender equality including prevention of sexual harassment or abuse — Anonymous

The tyranny of maternal duty is not new, but it has become considerably more pronounced with the rise of naturalism, and it has thus far produced neither a matriarchy nor sexual equality, but rather a regression in women's status. — Elisabeth Badinter

[The Truth Seeker is] Devoted to: science, morals, free thought, free discussions, liberalism, sexual equality, labor reform, progression, free education and whatever tends to elevate and emancipate the human race.
Opposed to: priestcraft, ecclesiasticism, dogmas, creeds, false theology, superstition, bigotry, ignorance, monopolies, aristocracies, privileged classes, tyranny, oppression, and everything that degrades or burdens mankind mentally or physically. — De Robigne Mortimer Bennett

Bertha divined what an enormous wrong had been wrought against the world in that the longing for pleasure is placed in woman just as in man; and that with women that longing is a sin, demanding expiation, if the yearning for pleasure is not at the same time a yearning for motherhood. — Arthur Schnitzler

So accustomed have male media leaders become to the wealth and decision-making power they command they just can't parse the notion of equality between the sexes. They have never understood the world feminists actually envision, in which women and men share equal educational, economic, and professional opportunities, live free of abuse, can be fully sexual without judgment or coercion, and where girls and boys alike can embrace their authentic selves because no one will be told that strength, tenderness, confidence, empathy, or aggression is "inappropriate" for their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical ability. — Jennifer L. Pozner

I use "equal worth" rather than equality because the latter term often assumes that men's historical experience - whether economic, political, or sexual - is the standard to which women should aspire. — Estelle B. Freedman

Demands for equality for women are threats to men's self-esteem and sense of sexual turf. — Alice S. Rossi

I do not know who first invented the myth of sexual equality. But it is a myth willfully fostered and nourished by certain semi-scientists and other fiction writers. And it has done more, I suspect, to unsettle marital happiness than any other false doctrine of this myth-ridden age. — Phyllis McGinley

Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual; they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The first commendment of hte post 1970s meritocracy can be sumed up as follows: "Thou shall provide equality of opportunity to all, regardless of race, gender, or sexual oritentation, but worry not about equality of outcomes." But what we've seen time and time again is that the two aren't so neatly separated. If you don't concern yourself at all with equality fo outcomes, you will, over time, produce a system with horrendous inequality of opportunity. This is the paradox of meritocracy: It can only truly come to flower in a society that starts out with a relatively high degree of equality. So if you want meritocracy, work for equality. Because it is only in a society which values equality of actual outcomes, one that promotes the commonweal and social solidarity, that equal opportunity and earned mobility can flourish. — Christopher L. Hayes