This Women's Month, we celebrate the women who have shaped our world, and continue to inspire us, with quotes from them that embody what it means to be unapologetically courageous and tenacious.
“I was still not keen on being paraded in a swimsuit, and once again I had to steel my nerves in order to make it through. No one wants to be subjected to that kind of objectification, but the fact is, there is so much to be gained by using these pageants as a platform for your future. As with many things in life, I could not get one without the other, so I put my hand up and I did what I had to do. I walked up and down that ramp with determination, and I did my family proud.”
― Basetsana Kumalo, Bassie: My Journey of Hope
“Women endure entire lifetimes of these indignities—in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, oppression. These things injure us. They sap our strength. Some of the cuts are so small they’re barely visible. Others are huge and gaping, leaving scars that never heal. Either way, they accumulate. We carry them everywhere, to and from school and work, at home while raising our children, at our places of worship, anytime we try to advance.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming
“I am no longer in the habit of denying myself, emotionally or physically. I’m proud to be a high-maintenance woman! My wellness regimen includes acupuncture and massage. I do regular beauty treatments that aren’t necessary but feel good. I have facials. I get my hair painted—not just dyed one color, but three, from dark to light. I go to the department store makeup counter and experiment with new ways of doing my eyes. If I hadn’t learned to develop inner self-regard, no amount of pampering on the outside could change the way I feel about myself. But now that I hold myself in high esteem, now that I love myself, I know that taking care of myself on the inside can include taking care of myself on the outside, too— treating myself to nice things without suffering guilt, letting my appearance be an avenue for self-expression. And I’ve learned to accept a compliment. When someone says, “I like your scarf,” I say, “Thank you. I like it, too.”
― Edith Eger, The Choice
“I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: "It is a subject on which nothing final can be known." The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations. Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.”
― Tara Westover, Educated
“I want us all to grow so comfortable in our own feelings, our own knowing, our own imagination that we become more committed to our own joy, freedom, and integrity than we are to manipulating what others think of us. I want us to refuse to betray ourselves. Because what the world needs now in order to evolve is to watch one woman at a time live her truest, most beautiful life without asking for permission or offering explanation.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed
“Even to me the issue of ‘stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest’ sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
“The comprehension of this Wild Woman nature is not a religion but a practice. It is a psychology in its truest sense...a knowing of the soul. Without her, women are without ears to hear soultalk or to register the chiming of their own inner rhythms...Without her, they forget why they’re here, they hold on when they would best hold out. Without her they are silent when they are in fact on fire. She is their regulator, she is their soulful heart, the same as the human heart regulates the physical body.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women who Run with Wolves
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