“Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands, Black women were practically anomalies.”

—  Angela Davis

Women, Race and Class (1983)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers a…" by Angela Davis?
Angela Davis photo
Angela Davis 55
American political activist, scholar, and author 1944

Related quotes

Pope Francis photo

“We will also discuss the role of women in the Church. Remember that the Church (la chiesa) is feminine.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, 2013, Interview in La Repubblica

Matt Ridley photo

“As one of Kondrashov's critics put it, sex is a 'cumbersome strange tool to have evolved fro a housekeeping role”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 3

Mary Wollstonecraft photo

“To be a good mother — a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands.”

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 10
Context: To be a good mother — a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.

Pearl S.  Buck photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw photo
Camille Paglia photo

“Male mastery in marriage is a social illusion, nurtured by women exhorting their creations to play and walk. At the emotional heart of every marriage is a pietà of mother and son.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 53

Al-Mutanabbi photo
Pat Robertson photo

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about 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 (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

1992 Iowa fundraising letter opposing a state equal-rights amendment ("Equal Rights Initiative in Iowa Attacked", Washington Post, 23 August 1992); it is sometimes claimed that this statement appeared in Robertson's 1992 GOP convention speech, but this is not the case (see also transcript http://www.patrobertson.com/Speeches/1992GOPConvention.asp)

Ellen Willis photo

“These are the two faces of feminine ideology in a patriarchal culture: they induce women to accept a spurious moral superiority as a substitute for sexual pleasure, and curbs on men's sexual freedom as a substitute for real power.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Lust Horizons: Is the Woman's Movement Pro-Sex?" (1981), No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays (1992)
Context: These apparently opposed perspectives meet on the common ground of sexual conservatism. The monogamists uphold the traditional wife's "official" values: emotional commitment is inseparable from a legal/moral obligation to permanence and fidelity; men are always trying to escape these duties; it's in our interest to make them shape up. The separatists tap into the underside of traditional femininity — the bitter, self-righteous fury that propels the indictment of men as lustful beasts ravaging their chaste victims. These are the two faces of feminine ideology in a patriarchal culture: they induce women to accept a spurious moral superiority as a substitute for sexual pleasure, and curbs on men's sexual freedom as a substitute for real power.

Related topics