What some men don't understand is that by opposing policies to reduce violence, promote equal pay and universal healthcare and voting to limit access to contraception and legal abortion, they are relegating women to another century, a time when men ruled exclusively and women were considered property and had to be guided by a firm masculine hand.
Interpretation
Opposing progressive policies traps women in outdated roles and limits their rights.
Madeleine M. Kunin's quote addresses the importance of supporting policies that uplift women's rights and promote equality. By opposing measures aimed at reducing violence, ensuring fair pay, and securing health care access, some men perpetuate a regressive mindset that harks back to a time when women were not regarded as equals, emphasizing the need for contemporary respect and rights.
In practice
During a women's rights rally, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of supporting equality in legislation.
It's time for male leaders to not only ask for binders of qualified women, but to re-write the definition of 'qualified.' The best man for the job, may in fact, be a woman, whose biography is not traditional, but is rich with experiences and skills that are not necessarily learned either in school or on the job.
It's time for women to wake up, to use the power of the vote, to honor the suffragists who chained themselves to the White House fence so that women could vote.
When women and men can shed an equal quantity of tears in public, that's when we'll have equal power.
Any smart executive understands that to find the best talent she has to explore new territory that lies beyond familiar geography. That applies not only to gender, but also to race, religion, background and age.
What works for a man, still does not work for a woman - both in terms of how they see themselves and how we see them.
Legislative proposals that would enable an employer to determine whether or not a woman's insurance would cover the cost of birth control strikes women as particularly bizarre. Is the boss going to take care of the children that are conceived accidentally? Stop treating us like children. Women are grown ups.
We can build wealth in all our communities, value public education, plan for our neighborhoods, invest in housing we can afford and transportation that serves everyone, truly fund public health for safety and healing, and deliver on a city Green New Deal for clean air and water, healthy homes, and the brightest future for our children.
Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.
Whether or not you welcome it, moving house requires you to make choices about the past as you move into the future. What of all of your bits of stuff is truly valued? What should be left behind?
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.
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