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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the tendency to judge women's achievements based on their appearance rather than their intelligence.
Stacy Schiff's quote highlights the societal tendency to diminish women's accomplishments by attributing them to physical attractiveness instead of intellectual capability. This reductionist view not only undermines their achievements but also reflects a broader cultural bias that prioritizes appearance over intellect in assessing women's value and contributions.
Themes
SuccessWomenBeautyIntellectGenderAchievement
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about women's rights, one might quote this to emphasize the need for recognizing women's accomplishments.
More from Stacy Schiff
All quotes βAnd in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
Stacy SchiffRead
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.
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.
Stacy SchiffRead
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.
Stacy SchiffRead
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.
Stacy SchiffRead
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But as to women, who can penetrate the real sufferings of their she condition? Man's very sympathy with their estate has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, but form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.
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