Women are often afraid to move away; they are afraid to offend the offender.
The desire for adult approval leads girls to lower their voices and give up the hope that they will be heard.
When you are not allowed to argue, thinking slows down. It makes girls safer for society.Â
Thinking girls are difficult to manipulate.
You cannot argue if you cannot think. In an argument, thinking and speaking happen in quick succession, an exhilarating experience in rapid logical thinking.
today’s parents prefer moulding their girls for survival and acceptance in society, where speaking up and arguing are still definitely not considered desirable female virtues.
Girls are prepared to ‘fit into’ marriage, and the behavioural criteria have not changed across generations.
Girls with strong minds and the ability to express their views openly are assigned a negative value in society.
Asserting a different opinion is perceived disrespectful
Although women commonly claim to be more emotional and more emotionally sensitive, they also block their emotions, including anger. This reflects the early training of conflict as something bad to be avoided.
‘So if I were to write my autobiography I would say if you are fearful and keep quiet, don’t be; it just ruins relationships. If you are afraid of looking like a bad woman, it will happen anyway.
Having a self becomes confused with being selfish.
‘Women smile to please. Men smile when pleased.’
When you don’t have preferences, it is easy to go with other people’s preferences.
It is difficult for an intelligent human being to erase herself completely.
Just about every quality associated with women becomes discounted and somehow made wrong or a sign of weakness.
Each woman thinks these traits are her own/ They don’t realize they are the result of long training in habits that combine not-taking-initiative behaviours with beliefs about what is good, normal and moral for a woman.
‘Women who emerge as leaders have to navigate a cultural minefield inhabited mostly by men.
The opposite of pleasing behaviour is not displeasing behaviour. It is not aggression. The opposite of pleasing is to have a self. A strong self that can choose when to please, when to give, when to sacrifice and when to say no at home, on the street or in the office.Â
The opposite of a pleasing woman is a strong woman.
A strong woman is unapologetic of her choices, yet she has the wisdom to know when she has wronged someone and the humility to say ‘I am sorry’ without making ‘sorry’ her life mantra.Â
women have been trained to confuse independence with not asking for help.Â
Cultural pride in being good isolates and traps women even when they seemingly belong to a community.
When desire for freedom is made immoral, it is difficult to choose freely, even when it is so close you can almost taste it.Â
‘You have to fight for years before you get even a little of what you want.’
 there are many more bad marriages than we want to acknowledge.
there is no single force more threatening than the single woman who delays marriage, is financially independent, lives on her own and has high earning power.
Organization is the key ingredient to bring about collective change.
