Patriarchal Culture Quotes

“the oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

“The representation of women in the society, especially through mass media has been the most delusional act ever done on the grounds of human existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“How dare a person tell a woman, how to dress, how to talk, how to behave! Any being who does that, is no human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“All the bloodsheds in human history have been caused by men, not women.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“I am a scientist who studies the human mind, including the sexual differences in mental faculties, and I am telling you, ten female thinkers can teach humanity lessons equivalent to the teachings of a hundred male thinkers of history.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“Yet despite all these things we know to be true- despite the preponderance of evidence showing the mental and emotional distress people demonstrate in violent and harassing environments- we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them.”
― Jessica Valenti, Sex Object: A Memoir

“Given the same honor and dignity as men, women can build a much better and more harmonious world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“I am no feminist. Even though the term "feminism" is founded upon the basic principle of gender equality, it possesses its own fundamental gender bias, which makes it inclined towards the wellbeing of women, over the wellbeing of the whole society. And if history has shown anything, it is that such fundamental biases in time corrupt even the most glorious ideas and give birth to prejudice, bigotry and differentiation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“Women of the thinking society are the builders of nations. Women of the sentient society are the builders of the world. And given the same honor and dignity as men, women can build a much better and more harmonious world. Harmony and conflict-solving run in their veins. Whereas men have evolved into more authoritarian creatures.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“Remember, for a society to truly progress we don't need woman or man, we need a fully-fledged human - nothing short of that would do.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“Gender equality is not a belief, it is not an idea - it is a key element of the society that will define whether we the humans shall march ahead towards glory and advancement, or sink into the abyss of an existential doom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“Why should women have to give up their name upon marriage, as if they are nothing but hood ornaments to their husbands! And why should a child be identified only by their father’s name and not the mother’s, who by the way, is the root of all creation - who is creation! We are never going to have a civilized society with equity as foundation, unless we acknowledge and abolish such filthy habits that we’ve been practicing as tradition.

Showing off our skin-deep support for equality few days a year doesn’t eliminate all the discriminations from the world, we have to live each day as the walking proof of equality, ascension and assimilation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work

“Growing up, we were surrounded by stories of women being married off without their consent, and it was always about how they compromised, reconciled, and found love in the end. It was romanticized so much. What an abhorrent thing to tell someone — that your love isn’t where your interest lie, or that your parents know what’s best for you better than you do.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“Women ain't hood ornament.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Bad girls aren't villains; they're transgressive forces within patriarchal cultures. Made to choose between wreaking destruction and accepting their own powerlessness, they pick destruction.”
― Judy Berman

“A garden is man’s attempt to domesticate nature. And a man is man’s attempt to domesticate himself.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“Where did Shanti find the will? It must have been in the garden. An ant and a bird argue over the right to flight. The bird spreads her wings and flies away; the ant sits on an autumn leaf and waits for the wind.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“When the mind asks endless questions without receiving any concrete answers, it starts attacking the body. It was either that or Shanti’s water had broken.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“It is not patriarchal to hold the door for a lady, It is not cowardly to leave your seat to the elderly. But it is barbaric to harass a breastfeeding mother, And prehistoric to force a woman carry a pregnancy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“Women Ain't Hood Ornament (The Sonnet)

Why should women have to give up,
Their name when they get married,
As if they are not real people,
But hood ornament to their husband!
Why should a child be identified only,
By their father's name, not mother's,
Who by the way is the root of creation,
Who is the actual almighty creator!
It is a sad state of affairs when,
Morons peddle moronity as tradition.
Shame on us for sustaining such savagery,
As we do not put our backbone to action!
Each couple must determine the parameters
of their relationship, not some ragged tradition.
Only norm that matters is love, for in love lies emancipation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today--- the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.”
― Thrity Umrigar, Honor

“Flowers, you who end in close affinity to the arrangers’ hands
(Hands of girls then, hands of girls now),
You who cover the garden table from end to end,
Grown weak, gently injured,

Waiting for water which revives you once more
From a death already commenced - and now
Again taken up between the opposing, sorting
Fingers and their feeling of you, and which can so well

Show you favour, give ease more than you had imagined,
As you recover yourselves in a jug,
Cooling slowly, and the ardour of the girls like confessions

Given up by you, seeping forth like muddy and tiresome sins
You committed by being plucked, - these are another tie between you,
So joined in alliance by both your blossomings.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

“Lucy finished her toast. "Then perhaps you should go. I'll wager he won't snap at you for trying to make conversation."
"So that she can swoon over him?" Anthony snorted. "He's fifteen years older than her."
"So? Father was fifteen years older than Mother. It's quite common for a husband to be older than a wife."
"And yet she died before him because she had too many children." Anna's smile disappeared. "She was simply worn out with it."
Lucy reached for Anna's hand. "That might be true. but as Father will no doubt remind you, that is a woman's lot in life."
Anna snatched her hand free. "That doesn't make it any better, though, does it?"
Lucy could only agree.”
― Catherine Lloyd, Death Comes to the Village

“The women were emboldened by the first opportunity that had ever presented itself in their lives; the chance to take off the yoke and look back at the long slavish distance they had walked. How else could they count their losses? The neck of an ox, carrying a wooden yoke, cannot turn.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“Boys become men, and men become stubborn. They insist on carrying all the burdens by themselves when they can easily share them with their women and daughters. We don’t distinguish between mules and hinnies when we load them, do we? So basically, we have given more equality to donkeys than to one another as people. And we are still none the wiser.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“You have to become a thief in order to rob the thief who robbed you.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“It is hard to follow the course of change when you have been changing along with it. It is only when there is some degree of constancy that an observer can note the variations.4. It is hard to follow the course of change when you have been changing along with it. It is only when there is some degree of constancy that an observer can note the variations.”
― Ashish Khetarpal, Pushing Gods Out

“War is a masculine merchandise.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“This is a love story, though. The kind where the lover laments all the years she lost at the altar of some false god. When regret seeps in, I try to remember the Hecatoncheires. They did not defeat the Titans as children. They lived under their power. They were of the Titans. It took years for their strength to surpass that of the old gods. But when they did? They threw mountains, a hundred at a time, one for each great hand. And what if they had been taught to hate their own strength? Maybe it would have taken a hundred years for them to grasp a mountain in hand, to understand what they could do, that they could make their own Olympus.”
― Melissa Febos, Girlhood

“One must suspect, finally, that many women judged the heroic adventure of their men as some kind of outrageous folly thrust upon them by obedience to patriarchal ritual.”
― Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey