Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.
Bella AbzugRead
When I first became a lawyer, only 2% of the bar was women. People would always think I was a secretary. In those days, professional women in the business world wore hats. So I started wearing hats.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the challenges faced by women in the legal profession and the determination to assert one's identity and presence.
Bella Abzug's quote highlights the gender bias prevalent in the legal profession during her early career, when only a small percentage of lawyers were women. By choosing to wear hats, she made a statement against the stereotype of women as secretaries, asserting her position and advocating for female representation and respect in professional settings.
Themes
WomenLawIdentityProfessionalismRepresentation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech celebrating women's achievements in the workforce.
More from Bella Abzug
All quotes →She (a woman politician) will be challenging a system that is still wedded to militarism and that saves billions of dollars a year by underpaying women and using them as a reserve cheap labor supply
Bella AbzugRead
They are a very extensive minority who have suffered discrimination and who have the same right to participation in the promise and fruits of society as every other individual.
Bella AbzugRead
Our struggle was political, ideological and economic, and we felt we couldn't make something of ourselves unless we bettered society. We saw the two together.
Bella AbzugRead
As women, we know that we must always find ways to change the process because the present institutions want to hold on to power and keep the status quo.
Bella AbzugRead
I prefer the word 'homemaker' because 'housewife' always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.
Bella AbzugRead
Similar quotes
The scariest moment is always just before you start.
Stephen KingRead
Following Emporer Nero's command, "Let the Christians be exterminated!:" . . . they [the Christians] were made the subjects of sport; they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights.
TacitusRead
When you hear anyone policing the bodies of trans women, misgendering and othering us, and violently exiling us from spaces, you should not dismiss it as a trans issue that trans women should speak out against. You should be engaged in the dialogue, discourse, and activism that challenges the very fibers of your movement.
Janet MockRead
For every Harvey Weinstein, there's three or four thousand other pastors, coaches, teachers, uncles, cousins, and stepfathers who are committing the same crimes. We have to keep that in focus and we have to keep talking about it.
Tarana BurkeRead
I'd been in jail, and I'd been beat. I had been to a voter registration workshop, you know, to - they were just training and teaching us how to register, to pass the literacy test.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
Grunts on the line, where the enemy wants them dead, still goof off - even knowing that by letting their guard down they might die.
David HackworthRead