“I believe that they have put a spotlight on what women have always known and have always been more or less silent about. Patriarchal domination, even — despite appearances — in the West, is still very entrenched, and each of us, in the most diverse places, in the most varied forms, suffers the humiliation of being a silent victim or a fearful accomplice or a reluctant rebel or even a diligent accuser of victims rather than of the rapists. Paradoxically, I don’t feel that there are great differences between the women of the Neapolitan neighborhood whose story I told and Hollywood actresses or the educated, refined women who work at the highest levels of our socioeconomic system…”

— Elena Ferrante

On the #MeToo movement and the parallels between her characters and the plight of American women in “In a rare interview, Elena Ferrante describes the writing process behind the Neapolitan novels” https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-elena-ferrante-interview-20180517-htmlstory.html in Los Angeles Times (2018 May 17)

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 "I believe that they have put a spotlight on what women have always known and have always been more or less silent about…" by Elena Ferrante?

Elena Ferrante25

Italian writer 1943

Related quotes

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)

“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Conference on domestic violence https://web.archive.org/web/20010726225357/http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html in San Salvador, El Salvador (17 November 1998). <br class="br">White House years (1993–2000)

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“One of the strongest feelings I remember from my childhood is, precisely, of being humiliated; of being knocked about by words, acts, or situations.
Isn't it a fact that children are always feeling deeply humiliated in their relations with grown-ups and each other? I have a feeling children spend a good deal of their time humiliating one another. Our whole education is just one long humiliation, and it was even more so when I was a child.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Torsten Manns interview 
Bergman on Bergman (1970)
Context: One of the strongest feelings I remember from my childhood is, precisely, of being humiliated; of being knocked about by words, acts, or situations.
Isn't it a fact that children are always feeling deeply humiliated in their relations with grown-ups and each other? I have a feeling children spend a good deal of their time humiliating one another. Our whole education is just one long humiliation, and it was even more so when I was a child. One of the wounds I've found hardest to bear in my adult life has been the fear of humiliation, and the sense of being humiliated... Every time I read a review, for instance — whether laudatory or not — this feeling awakes... To humiliate and be humiliated, I think, is a crucial element in our whole social structure. It's not only the artist I'm sorry for. It's just that I know exactly where he feels most humiliated. Our bureaucracy, for instance. I regard it as in high degree built up on humiliation, one of the nastiest and most dangerous of all poisons.

“There will never be darkness because in both of us there's always movement, renewal, surprises. I have never known stagnation. Not even introspection has been a still experience…”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

August 1932 Henry and June
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

“I think we have much more to say about what happens to us than most people believe.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

“The most marvelous engineering feats have been performed each day, even more marvelous than they sometimes appear to our rather jaded sense of wonder. But how is it possible to appreciate these achievements when the very foundations of the profession are being attacked and appear to be crumbling? … The profession, for all its continuing technical achievements, finds itself at the present time in a Dark Age of the spirit.”

Samuel C. Florman (1925) American writer and civil engineer

Source: The Existential Pleasures of Engineering (1976), p. 11

“I have, even as a child, always been a firm believer in fairness and always strive to be even-handed in my dealings with everyone,”

Beatrice Mtetwa (1957) Zimbabwean human rights lawyer

Source: Beatrice Mtetwa: Zimbabwe’s Frontline Defender Of Human Rights https://www.newzimbabwe.com/beatrice-mtetwa-zimbabwes-frontline-defender-of-human-rights/

“There is another and very important ground for standardization and that is the desirability of having parts interchangeable. Standards of exchange have long been in general use, and these have, most usually, been fixed with a view to convenient use rather than on a scientific basis. The units of weight and measure are examples of this form of standard. They may not even be the most logical, or most convenient, but once established they can, in general, be changed only by slow degrees, if at all.”

Dexter S. Kimball (1865–1952) American engineer

Source: Principles of industrial organization, 1913, p. 42

“Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Elena Ferrante25

Related quotes

Related topics