Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Woman

“This is the woman's century, the first chance for the mother of the world to rise to her full place… and the world waits while she powders her nose.”

“Here she comes, running, out of prison and off the pedestal: chains off, crown off, halo off, just a live woman.”

“A man's honor always seems to want to kill a woman to satisfy it.”

“Woman" in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether.”

“Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move-and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!”

“To-day there is hardly a woman of intelligence in all America, to say nothing of other countries, who is not definitely and actively concerned in some social interest, who does not recognize some duty besides those incident to her own blood relationship.”

“It becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the women behind it is as plain as can be. I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman. By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still.”