I just posted this in another group, and thought I would share it here also!

Because a Woman's Work is Never Done Manifesto*

Because a woman's work is never done.
and is underpaid, or unpaid, or boring, or repetitious,
and we're the first to get fired,
and what we look like is more important than what we do.
And if we get raped its our fault
and if we get beaten we must have provoked it
and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches
and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos
and if we don't we're frigid
and if we love women it's because we can't get a real man
and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic or pushy
and if we expect childcare we're selfish
and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and un-feminine
and if we don't we're typical weak females
and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man
and if we don't we're unnatural
and because we still can't get an adequate, safe contraceptive, but men
can walk on the moon
and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty
about abortion
and for lots and lots of other reasons
we are part of the women's liberation movement...
*
- Joyce Stevens, written for Women's Liberation Broadsheet,
International Woman's Day, 1975.*

Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.  ~Margaret Mead

"Feminism has transformed the lives and aspirations of the majority of women in ways unmeasurable by statistics... raising women's intellectual,
economic and political expectations, increasing intolerance of wife beating, rape and other violence against women, redefining women's sexuality."
- Linda Gordon, historian, author of  United States Women's History, 1997

Susan B. Anthony:
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.

I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want.  If that makes me a bitch, okay.  ~Madonna Ciccone

Women are not inherently passive or peaceful.  We're not inherently anything but human.  ~Robin Morgan

Women's chains have been forged by men, not by anatomy.  ~Estelle R. Ramey

Men weren't really the enemy - they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.  ~Betty Friedan

Rebecca West:
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.  ~Lucretia Mott

"We are all benefiting from the great feminists who struggled and suffered and worked to give us everything women now enjoy... I refer to myself as a feminist, and I do it with pride." 
- Cybil Shepherd, feminist

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.  ~Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all civil and political rights that belong to the citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever." 
- Susan B. Anthony, 19th- & early 20th-century leader of the Women's Movement

I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist.  ~Sally Kempton, attributed

There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina.  All other jobs should be open to everybody.  ~Florynce Kennedy

I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career.  I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing.  ~Gloria Steinem

If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?  ~Mary Astell

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels. ~Faith Whittlese

"A natural response is to change the word feminist to a word with fewer stigmas attached.  But inevitably the same thing will happen to that magical word.  Part of the radical connotation of feminism is not due to the word, but to the action.  The act of a woman standing up for herself is radical, whether she calls herself a feminist or not." 
~ Paula Kamen, feminist

***************

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.  The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.  ~Grover Cleveland, 1905

I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures.  They've blown it.  Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom.  These women just need a man in the house.  That's all they need.  Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home.  And they blew it and they're mad at all men.  Feminists hate men.  They're sexist.  They hate men - that's their problem.  ~Reverend Jerry Falwell

[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.  ~Pat Robertson

The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it. Susan B. Anthony

 [T]here never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.Susan B. Anthony

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power.  You just take it.  ~Roseanne Barr

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.  ~Anaïs Nin

You don't have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.  ~Jane Galvin Lewis

History is herstory too.  ~Author Unknown

"I will love, honor, cherish- but not obey."
Rosalie Slaughter Morton (1876-1955),

"A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex but neither should she adjust to prejudice and discrimination." Betty Friedan

"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."
Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876

I never knew there was a quote out there on this: I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want.  If that makes me a bitch, okay.  ~Madonna Ciccone

How funny i usally tell my mom when she calls me a bitch i tell her: "just because i know what i want wont settle for less, and i tell it like it is and i have an opinion that makes me a bitch...then i guess i am proud to be a bitch" it usally shuts her up.

falwell and robertson--what a couple of scumbags. 

i also like the margaret mead one.

"The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself."         virginia woolf.

i think this is true for most advances in rights.  people often write about those who were ahead of their times and who pushed for equality.  but not nearly enough is written about those who were behind their times, who pushed against equality--the villians of history.

Here's my favorite:

"There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver" -- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Unfortunately, a lot of anti-feminists would warp this and say that women don't have minds! What it's saying is that the brain is the brain. There is no such thing as a "female brain" or a "male brain". And even more unfortunately, this has been lost what with all the Mars/Venus type books and it seems like no one agrees with me on this issue. I'd love some moral support here from like-minded folks.

I also liked the one about women not being inherently passive or peaceful. Again, that "women are inherently" (or for that matter, "men are inherently") [fill in the blank] is highly offensive to me. I have been fighting a losing battle against this sort of thing all my life! Again, any moral support out there is welcomed!

And I can't stand Falwell or Robertson, either! Boo hiss!

I came across these inspirational quotes from feminist.com and here to share with all the women around the globe.

“In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist."
—Gloria Steinem

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."
—Louisa May Alcott

"Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."
—Susan B. Anthony

"The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race."
—Susan B. Anthony

"In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman."
—Nancy Astor
(British Politician)

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women."
—Elizabeth Blackwell
(The first woman in the U.S. to become a physician)

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less traveled by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth."
— Rachel Carson

"The family unit plays a critical role in our society and in the training of the generation to come."
—Sandra Day O'Connor

"We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around."
—Geraldine Ferraro
(The first woman to be nominated as Vice President of the United States)

"You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do."
—Jane Fonda

  "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."
— Margaret Fuller

  "My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong."
—Mother Jones

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
—Janis Joplin

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
—Helen Keller

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place."
—Margaret Mead

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead

"I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome."
—Golda Meir

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
— Constance Baker Motley
(First Black Woman in the U.S. to become a Federal Judge)

"I think the key is for women not to set any limits."
— Martina Navratilova

"People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me."
—Princess Diana

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't know who said it originally but it has remained in my thoughts:

"To be a woman with ambitions greater than society will allow is to die a slow death. I want to live a full life ... "

Another favourite: "Ain't I A Woman" by Sojourner Truth

"That man over there say
     a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
     and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages
   or over mud puddles
      or gives me a best place. . .

And ain't I a woman?

     Look at me
Look at my arm!
     I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
     and no man could head me. . .
And ain't I a woman?

   I could work as much
and eat as much as a man--
   when I could get to it--
and bear the lash as well
   and ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me. . .
and ain't I a woman?
     that little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman

Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again."