All my battles were with male egos. I’m just looking for equality, not to dominate. But I want to be able to control my vision.
Interpretation
Joni Mitchell emphasizes the struggle for equality in a male-dominated world, highlighting her desire for balance rather than control.
In this quote, Joni Mitchell reflects on her experiences with male egos and the challenges she faced while striving for equal recognition and respect. She clarifies that her aim is not to assert dominance over others but rather to maintain control over her own artistic vision, advocating for equality and mutual respect in her pursuit of success.
In practice
In a speech about gender equality at a conference, you might quote Joni Mitchell to emphasize the fight for balance in representation.
There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free
Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.
I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
I've said this before, and I'm sure there are people who disagree, but I feel like one of the reasons there aren't a lot more women in stand-up - and there are many more now; it's not parity, but it's getting there - is that women are not socialized to look stupid or silly. They're socialized to be pretty and precious.
This idea of doing it all is the enemy of equality, not the path to do it. It's impossible to do two full-time jobs, and an impossible definition of success is just another way of making women feel like failures... Any definition of success has to include social policies that honor families and men who raise babies as much as women do.
It's very difficult to figure out, for me, what stops really talented young female filmmakers from having the kind of careers that their really talented young male counterparts are having.
It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes.
I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.
Until mothers earn their livings, women will not
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