There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of "romantic paternalism" which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the historical issue of sex discrimination and its detrimental effects on women.
William J. Brennan emphasizes the long-standing presence of sex discrimination in society, highlighting how it has often been justified through a misguided sense of 'romantic paternalism.' This attitude, instead of empowering women, has confined them to restrictive roles, suggesting that while they may be idealized, they are ultimately restrained by societal norms.
In practice
In a discussion about gender equality in the workplace, this quote can emphasize the systemic issues that still need to be addressed.
If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power conceived by the Framers . . . . Such recognition will not come from a technical understanding of the organs of government, or the new forms of wealth they administer. It requires something different, something deeper-a personal confrontation with the wellsprings of our society.
Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.
At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.
Use of a mentally ill person's involuntary confession is antithetical to the notion of fundamental fairness embodied in the due process clause.
The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.
I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.
Favors cease to be favors when there are conditions attached to them.
To be friends with God means to pray with simplicity, like children talking to their parents.
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
I know what it's like when you are a refugee, living on the mercy of others and having to adjust.
I see interracial couples all the time in Nashville. I'm a Jew in Nashville. I'm a gay person in Nashville. It's a non-issue in most of the time. That's a huge leap forward.
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