For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view.
Stacy SchiffRead
Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how traditional notions of power have constrained women's identities and roles.
Stacy Schiff's quote critiques the historical male dominance in power structures, suggesting that when women attempted to embrace these roles, they were often constrained by societal expectations and norms. The metaphor of a 'straitjacket' emphasizes the restrictive nature of these constructs, indicating that rather than empowering women, traditional power has limited their true identities and potential.
In practice
During a women's empowerment seminar to discuss the challenges women face in leadership roles.
For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view.
And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life.
Cleopatra had one great advantage. She lived at a time when female sovereigns were not anomalies. And when women enjoyed rights they would not again enjoy for another 2,000 years. You could call them early feminists, if I may use a dirty word.
Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented.
A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.
A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.
To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.
People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.
Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.
One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.
Religious belief, like history itself, is a story that is always unfolding, always subject to inquiry and ripe for questioning. For without doubt there is no faith.
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