Best 253 quotes in «womanhood quotes» category

It seems to be the fashion nowadays for a girl to behave as much like a man as possible. Well, I won't! I'll make the best of being a girl and be as nice a specimen as I can: sweet and modest, a dear, dainty thing with clothes smelling all sweet and violety, a soft voice, and pretty, womanly ways. Since I'm a girl, I prefer to be a real one!

It's hard to live in a man's world when you are not the only woman in it

It's not very easy to grow up into a woman. We are always taught, almost bombarded, with ideals of what we should be at every age in our lives: "This is what you should wear at age twenty", "That is what you must act like at age twenty-five", "This is what you should be doing when you are seventeen." But amidst all the many voices that bark all these orders and set all of these ideals for girls today, there lacks the voice of assurance. There is no comfort and assurance. I want to be able to say, that there are four things admirable for a woman to be, at any age! Whether you are four or forty-four or nineteen! It's always wonderful to be elegant, it's always fashionable to have grace, it's always glamorous to be brave, and it's always important to own a delectable perfume! Yes, wearing a beautiful fragrance is in style at any age!

It’s no wonder we have such mixed feelings about these women: they’re constant reminders of the chasm between what we think we believe and how we actually behave.

It's the sting of knowing that exactly as the world starts expanding for most boys, it begins to shrink for [girls].

It takes a lot of time, focus and energy to realize the enormity of being the ocean with your very own tide every month. However, by honoring the demands of bleeding, our blood gives something in return. The crazed bitch from irritation hell recedes. In her place arises a side of ourselves with whom we may not—at first—be comfortable. She is a vulnerable, highly perceptive genius who can ponder a given issue and take her world by storm. When we’re quiet and bleeding, we stumble upon the solutions to dilemmas that’ve been bugging us all month. Inspiration hits and moments of epiphany rumba ‘across de tundra of our senses. In this mode of existence one does not feel antipathy towards a bodily ritual so profoundly and routinely reinforces our cuntpower.

It takes a great woman to respect the little man in her child, and the little child in her man.

It was also an important marker in my life, one I distinctly remember as a building block in the self-limiting wall I constructed around my freedom of speech and movement.

It was getting late in the year, the sky had been low and overcast for days, and I was drinking tea in a glassy room with a woman without children, a gate through which no one had entered the world. She was turning the pages of an expensive book on a coffee table, even though we were drinking tea, a book of colorful paintings— a landscape, a portrait, a still life, a field, a face, a pear and a knife, all turning on the table. Men had entered there but no girl or boy had come out, I was thinking oddly as she stopped at a page of clouds aloft in a pale sky, tinged with red and gold. This one is my favorite, she said, even though it was only a detail, a corner of a larger painting which she had never seen. Nor did she want to see the countryside below or the portrayal of some myth in order for the billowing clouds to seem complete. This was enough, this fraction of the whole, just as the leafy scene in the windows was enough now that the light was growing dim, as was she enough, perfectly by herself somewhere in the enormous mural of the world.

I was no soldier, only girl without a mother or the sense to understand this world without her.

I was never good at the future. I grew up with girls whose chief occupation was the future—designing it, instigating it. They could talk about it with so much confidence that it sounded like the past. During those talks, I had contributed nothing. I had visions, too abstract and flat for me to hang on to. For years I saw a generic city lit up at night. I would use those remote, artificial lights to soothe myself to sleep. One day I was quitting my job with no sense of exhilaration, one day I was leaving a note for my father, pulling out of his driveway, slightly bewildered, and two days later I was sitting in front of Howard. That was the way the future came to me. The vision that accompanied me on my drive was a girl, a lady actually. We had the same hair but she didn’t look like me. She was in a camel coat and ankle boots. A dress under the coat was belted high on her waist. She carried various shopping bags from specialty stores and as she was walking, pausing at certain windows, her coat would fly back in the wind. Her boot heels tapped on the cobblestones. She had lovers and breakups, an analyst, a library, acquaintances she ran into on the street whose names she couldn’t call to mind. She belonged to herself only. She had edges, boundaries, tastes, definition down to her eyelashes. And when she walked it was clear she knew where she was going.

…I wanted to remove, my diamond earrings, for I felt they were, weighing a little heavy. I wanted to remove my heels, for I felt they were, taking me a little, above the ground, than I needed to be. I wanted to, throw away my blazer, for it was too much, of a thick layer, to what I am deep inside.” (Poem- Unambitious, Book- Ginger and Honey)

Listen my dear sister! You only fix something, when it’s broken. And you - are far from broken. Say to yourself, I am perfect, the way I am. Say to yourself, I am beautiful the way I am. Say to yourself, those who do not accept me the way I am, do not deserve me in their life.

What is a woman's place in this modern world? Jasnah Kholin's words read. I rebel against this question, though so many of my peers ask it. The inherent bias in the inquiry seems invisible to so many of them. They consider themselves progressive because they are willing to challenge many of the assumptions of the past. They ignore the greater assumption--that a 'place' for women must be defined and set forth to begin with. Half of the population must somehow be reduced to the role arrived at by a single conversation. No matter how broad that role is, it will be--by-nature--a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood. I say that there is no role for women--there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar; for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither. Do not mistake me in assuming I value one woman's role above another. My point is not to stratify our society--we have done that far to well already--my point is to diversify our discourse. A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role. It is amazing to me that I even have to make this point, as I see it as the very foundation of our conversation.

I will never be scared to love me. I am a force to be reckoned with. I am beautiful.

Man is the master of Woman" - this statement may have been a glorious fact of primitive life in the wild, but it is nothing but an obnoxious stain on psyche of the thinking humanity.

Lucy could see that love unconfined, love outside convention, might well make a woman an unfit mother; you were one kind of woman or another: you were good or you were bad, as the world saw it, and no stations in between. They allowed you to choose; you could be the maternal or the erotic, but not a bit of both. The latter made you forget the former. Men married the maternal and then longed for the erotic. Or they married the erotic by mistake, and set about making it into the maternal, and then were just as disappointed.

Man and woman are the two wheels of society. If either one becomes defective, the society cannot make progress.

Mankind, not womankind, has slaughtered more humans in the name of God and Religion than for any other reason.

Maybe if you had megaphones on your chest they'd listen to the words that came out of your lips

May be it’s a male dominated world, but you will always be judged by the way you treat women So technically it’s our world

Men can go to hell! I’ll meet them there.

My great-grandmama told my grandma the part she lived through that my grandma didn't live through and my grandma told my mama what they both didn't live through and my mama told me.

Most religious scriptures are all about three apparently glorifying elements, -man, man and man.

Most of our addictions [shopping, food, bad relationships] as women flare up when we feel that we are not loved or sought after.

No longer did she look like a shy little maid who was trained to censor her thought before it reached her mouth. These past few days had turned her into a reserved yet intelligent young woman.

Mystery is what makes women, woman. A woman without mystery is no woman. She is a girl who has yet discovered the depths of her heart.

No matter how many things women suffer, nothing can take away their appetite for trouble.

No matter how much the woman is beautiful, she will lose her womanhood if she is dumb, arrogant or liar.

O my Courageous Sister! You have to become the beacon of hope for all women around you and then for the whole society.

Nothing special has happened today; no one can say she was more provoked than usual. It is only that every day one grows a little, every day something is different, so that in the heaping up of days suddenly a thing that was impossible has become possible. This is how a girl becomes a grown woman. Step by step until it is done.

Of the spirit of women. - The spiritual power of a woman is best demonstrated by her sacrificing her own spirit to that of a man out of love of him and of his spirit but then, despite this sacrifice, immediately evolving _a new spirit_ within the new domain, originally alien to her nature, to which the man's disposition impels her. (from Assorted Opinions & Maxims 272) -- This is the first time among years of reading Nietzsche that i agree with his words on women: this aphorism captures a few quintessences of true and gallant womanhood, namely the will(ingness) to sacrifice (not only to others but also to the necessity that arises in a context), the balance between creative and reactive, the free-spiritedness out of such balance without conceit and swagger, and the malleability/fluidity without blind submission. (It is momentous to note that the man-woman dynamic is not binary, and that man/womanhood is not a given in one's biology - it's more something that evolves in a person over time.)

Old age had distilled her down to her essence.

Ô, Muse of the Heart’s Passion, let me relive my Love’s memory, to remember her body, so brave and so free, and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me, and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me, Ô, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy!

Once a woman is comfortable in her own skin, living her own life and building a foundation by herself; it takes one heck of a man to make her want to sacrifice her independence.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent. When she came to my bed and begged me with sighs not to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise, I told her I’d spare her and kissed her closed eyes, then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise. While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fine I devoured her mouth, tender lips divine; and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine. Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.

Our lips were for each other and our eyes were full of dreams. We knew nothing of travel and we knew nothing of loss. Ours was a world of eternal spring, until the summer came.

Ô, Wanderess, Wanderess When did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss?

Pity womankind, but never a woman.

Patriarchy has been the normal in almost all agricultural and industrial societies. ...If patriarchy in Afro-Asia resulted from some chance occurrence, why were the Aztecs and Incas patriarchal? It is far more likely that even though the precise definition of man and woman varies between cultures, there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood. We do not know what this reason is; there are plenty of theories, none of the convincing.

- Paddle Your Own Canoe Voyager upon life's sea, To yourself be true, And whatever your lot may be, Paddle your own canoe. Never, though the winds may rave, Falter or look back; But upon the darkest wave Leave a shining track. Paddle your own canoe. Nobly dare the wildest storm, Stem the hardest gale, Brave of heart and strong of arm You will never fail. When the world is cold and dark, Keep your aim in view; And toward the beacon work, Paddle your own canoe. ... ..Would you crush the giant wrong, In the world's free fight? With a spirit brave and strong, Battle for the right. And to break the chains that bind The many to the few To enfranchise slavish mind,- Paddle your own canoe. Nothing great is lightly won, Nothing won is lost, Every good deed, nobly done, Will repay the cost. Leave to Heaven, in humble trust, All you will to do: But if succeed, you must Paddle your own canoe.

Plus having sex doesn’t make you a woman. That is so freaking cliché. If you want to have sex, have sex, but don’t make it this huge thing that carries all this weight. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

Remember the most beautiful yet the most uncomfortable pair of heels you own? You feel like a queen when you wear them, almost making people look up to your elegance. While on the inside you know how you struggle to keep your toes straight, firm your ankle so it doesn't slip, tolerate the knee pain so you are standing tall! Well that's an everyday life of a strong woman, There is so much going on in the inside- no one can guess a thing on your exterior. You don't need to wear heels everyday. It's okay to be weak and vulnerable- once in a while

Ready for a harsh truth? Women don’t need your validation. We already have our own.

Referred to euphemistically to children as 'privates', the vagina is no longer permitted to be private. Instead, it is photographed independently of the face, stripped of identity, of emotional and historical and economic context, and in the service of men: public.

Remember, for a society to truly progress we don't need woman or man, we need a fully-fledged human - nothing short of that would do.

Revirgination surgery for women is the fastest growing segment within the Indian cosmetic surgery industry. But any culture that decides a woman’s worth by the presence or absence of a membrane needs to examine its collective head.

Reímos cuando nos dicen que el hombre piensa mientras que la mujer da que pensar, que el hombre siente y no llora, y la mujer llora y no siente, que el hombre va al teatro formando parte de los espectadores para ver la comedia, la mujer va al teatro formando parte de la comedia para ver al público.

Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.