John Shelby Spong Quotes

People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong. I guess the best way of saying it is that no one could have survived what we survived - whether it was first extermination and slavery, then abandonment and erasure, then the series of gunboat two-bit dictatorships, followed by the final apotheosis of dictatorships, the Trujillato. You couldn't survive it without the resistance of this kind of woman.

Gender and race got very entwined in the 19th century, as abolition broke out, and then women wanted the right to speak about it.

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord.

I thought surely if women were consulted in the management of the state happier and better conditions must exist for hard-working sweated lives such as these... It was gradually unfolded to me that the unequal laws which made women appear interior to men were the main cause of these evils. I found that the man-made laws of marriage, parentage and divorce placed women in every way in a condition of slavery - and were as harmful to men by giving them power to be tyrants

I am persuaded that the rights of woman, like the rights of slaves, need only be examined to be understood and asserted.

I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am 'cause it's about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you're working in a patriarchal society when the word "feminist" has a weird connotation.

The truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface we have huge issues at play that really do affect women. It's time for all the women in America and all the women that love women and all the gay people and the people of color that we've all fought for to fight for us now.

I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay.

You either believe women are people or you don't. It's that simple.

I’m glad mainstream culture is starting to catch up to where lesbian-feminism was 30 years ago.

I am a fierce supporter of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and gay rights in this country.

I think people will have great conversations about religions, women's sexuality, gender issues and gay issues.

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes.

Gay people who want to marry have no desire to redefine marriage in any way. When women got the right to vote, it did not redefine voting.

If I can mean to people - if I can symbolize the ability to pursue gender equality, racial equality, and to be truthful about our experiences, then, absolutely, that's what I want to be.

Culture does not make people - people make culture. So if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, we must make it our culture. [...] A feminist is a man or a woman who says, 'yes there is a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it. We must do better.'

Feminism's failings do not mean we should eschew feminism entirely. People do terrible things all the time, but we don't regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things. We should disavow the failures of feminism without disavowing its many successes and how far we have come.

Something you hear a lot is that feminism dead. But if feminism is dead, why do people try so hard to kill it? Something just isn't making sense there. So I think when young women hear like, hey, someone's trying to get something over on me, you know, someone's trying to deliberately keep me away from a movement that could make my life better, I think that really resonates with them.

Ideally there should not be a men's movement but a gender transition movement; only the power of the women's movement necessitates the temporary corrective of a men's movement. And this creates a special challenge for men: There are few political movements filled with healthy people, yet few healthy changes have occurred without political movements.

God knows, as a minority, gay people have taken serious lumps for their sexual preferences. As has every minority.

In the same way that slavery was a moral challenge for the 19th century and totalitarianism was a challenge for the 20th century, the challenge that women and girls face around the world is the moral challenge of our time.

I don't think people should think of women's issues as auxiliary issues - they are central.

People need to stand up, women need to stand up for each other and say, "No you can't kick this person like they're a dog. You can disagree with someone politically, you can have arguments, definitely privilege needs to be discussed in real productive and valid ways. But it's not real criticism if it's just like, "you're a disgusting bad person."

When I talk about feminism and what I think the women's movement needs more of, it's not to detract from anything going on - I think everything going on is fantastic - but there's this missing element. I think we could learn from our detractors a little bit because I feel like they have a plan, a better understanding of things than we necessarily do. You can't change things if you don't understand the other people involved. And if you don't understand yourself, you'll never change.

What I often say to people who are quick to say I’m not a feminist is if you think you’re not a feminist, give it all back.