Nivedita Quotes

The fact is, no man can ever know whether a child is his. A woman knows a child is hers, but a man can never know whether it is his, not even with a DNA test. A DNA test can only tell you if the child is not yours, but if your DNA matches, it only indicates ‘a high statistical probability’ that it is your child. As they say, ‘Motherhood is a biological fact, fatherhood is a sociological fiction.’ It is this knowledge that creates permanent anxiety for patriarchy, an anxiety that requires women’s sexuality to be strictly policed.

Most of us will find that we were born for service. We must leave the results to God. If failure comes, there need be no sorrow. The work was done only for God. - Swami Vivekananda

The whole point about ‘romance’ is that the woman is somehow always smaller, more diminutive in a cute sort of way, while the man is adult.

a single generation enamoured of foreign ways is almost enough in history to risk the whole continuity of civilization and learning.

[O]nce we give up on the idea that only heterosexuality is normal and that all human bodies are clearly either male or female, more and more kinds of bodies and desires will come into view. Perhaps also, one body may, in one lifetime, move through many identities and desires. The use of,queer’ then, is a deliberate political move, which underscores the fluidity (potential and actual) of sexual identity and sexual desire. The term suggests that all kinds of sexual desire and identifications are possible, and all these have socio-cultural and historical co-ordinates.

The crime of capitalism is that it forces the vast majority of the population to remain preoccupied with basic concerns of nutrition, housing, health, and skill acquisition. It leaves little time for fostering the community and creativity that humans crave

If the many and the One be indeed the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion. To have and to hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid.

are so many strong historical facts that prove the beauty, the grandeur, the spirituality, the height of the love of a woman. Man has failed, but the woman has not. செக்ஸிலேயே

நான் எதையெல்லாம் சம்பாதித்தேனோ அதெல்லாம் என்னிடம் இல்லை. நான் எதையெல்லாம் கொடுத்தேனோ அது என்னிடமே இருக்கிறது. குர்ஜீஃப் அ

...the belief that the threat of rape is everywhere, that it can happen at any time, that it is the worst fate that can befall women, is enough to make us police ourselves and restrict our own mobility. But on the other hand, feminists also want to demystify rape, to begin to see it not as a unique and life-destroying form of violation from which one can never recover, but as (merely) another kind of violence against person.

There is abundant scholarship which establishes that the delegitimation of homosexual desire and the production of the naturally heterosexual, properly bi-gendered (unambiguously male or female) population of citizens, with the women respectably desexualized, is a process that is central to nation formation all over the globe.

[E]ven today, when confident and self-affirmative lesbian identities have emerged and are available to women, images of `lesbianism’ are still regularly appropriated by a male heterosexual pornographic imagination which cannot accept that this is one party to which men are not invited and at which their presence is not necessary.

If we are all bad women, then patriarchy had better watch out.

This entire system functions on the assumption that women do housework for love .

Women find themselves arguing futilely that ‘just because’ I go out to work/smoke/drink/wear unorthodox clothes/enjoy male company—that doesn’t make me a whore. Is there any comparable good/bad imagery for men? Of course not. The feminist response to being called whores or chhinaal should not be to protest fruitlessly, ‘We are not whores!’ but to turn the insult around and ask, ‘What makes you think this is an insult? We refuse the terms of this insult.’ What if all women were to say we are ‘loose’—we are not tightly controlled—and if that makes us whores, then we are all whores. If we are all bad women, then patriarchy had better watch out. Or, as Archana Verma puts it: ‘One day, I will hear hurled at me the words, loose woman, chhinaal, prostitute … And I will turn around and say, “Thank you for the compliment”. That day will come. And it will be a day of feminist celebration.

An ideal feminist world would not be one in which abortions were free and common, but one in which women would have greater control over pregnancy, and in which the circumstances that make pregnancies unwanted, would have been transformed. Until then, in a hugely imperfect, unfair and sexist world, I believe feminists must defend women's access to legal and safe abortions, whenever they decide to have them, whatever the reason for their decision.

[S]ocial order displays not the absolute presence or absence of intolerance to difference but a spectrum of intolerance. Each of us bears responsibility to some degree for maintaining these protocols of intolerance, which could not be kept in place if every single one of us did not play our part. From bringing up children ‘appropriately’, to lovingly correcting or punishing their inappropriate behaviour, to making sure we never breach the protocols ourselves, to staring or sniggering at people who look different, to coercive psychiatric and medical intervention, to emotional blackmail, to physical violence-it’s a range of slippages all the way that we seldom recognize.

The sex-based segregation of labour is the key, to maintaining not only the family, but also the economy, because the economy would collapse like a house of cards if this unpaid domestic labour had to be paid for by somebody, either by the husband or the employer. Consider this: the employer pays the employee for his or her labour in the workplace. But the fact that he or she can come back to the workplace, the next day, depends on somebody else (or herself) doing a whole lot of work the employer does not pay for—cooking, cleaning, running the home. When you have an entire structure of unpaid labour buttressing the economy, then the sexual division of labour cannot be considered to be domestic and private; it is what keeps the economy going. If tomorrow, every woman demanded to be paid for this work that she does, either the husband would have to pay her, or the employer would have to pay the husband. The economy would fall apart. This entire system functions on the assumption that women do housework for love. *

[D]emanding wages for housework (…) forced recognition of the fact that the domestic work which women do has economic value. But many feminists feel that this demand leaves untouched the sexual division of labour - indeed, measures like paid maternity leave (…) can be seen as a form of’wages for motherhood’ but(…) it fixes women more rigidly into work defined as ‘women’s work’.

Capitalism does not merely oppress workers on the factory floor. It creates an entire culture in which the logic of oppression and competition become common sense. It turns people against each other and their mvn humanity. Like Franz Kafka's character in The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, people are alienated from their human selves, isolated from their fellmv beings, and tortured by the loss of all that could be possible.

Consider carefully the term 'rape' and its implications. Would anybody ever say that rape is acceptable? From the most complacent patriarch to the angriest feminist, all would declare rape to be a terrible crime. But the apparent consensus is mythical, for the reasons behind arriving at this opinion are diametrically opposite. For patriarchal forces, rape is evil because it is a crime against the honour of the family, whereas feminists denounce rape because it is a crime against the autonomy and bodily integrity of a woman. This difference in understanding rape naturally leads to diametrically opposite proposals for fighting rape. In the patriarchal perspective, rape is a fate worse than death; there is no normal life possible for the raped woman; the way to avoid rape is to lock women up at home, within the family, under patriarchal controls. In this understanding, the raped woman is responsible for the crime against her because either she crossed the lakshman rekha of time (by going out after dark) or the lakshman rekha of respectability (by dressing in unconventional ways or by leaving the four walls of her home at all).

..a man who expresses sorrow publicly by crying would be humiliated by the taunt, 'Auraton jaise ro rahe ho?' (Why are you crying like a woman?) And who does not remember that stirring line of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan's--'Khoob ladi mardani, woh toh Jhansi wali rani thi.' (Bravely she fought, the Rani of Jhansi/Like a man she did fight). What does this line mean? Even when it is a woman who has shown bravery, it still cannot be understood as a 'feminine quality'. Bravery is seen as a masculine virtue no matter how many women may display it or how few men.

Richard Strasussஇன் Fire Famine ஆப்பராவை

The Search for love can sometimes be never-ending.

The Word love doesn't need an adjective like true. Love has been always true.

Book fill me in, with the romance I always wanted in my life.

You should see life as a learning experience and not complain about it.

Since only the mind can be sick, only the mind can be healed. Only the mind is in need of healing.

Huelga decir que no solo las «mujeres» pueden adoptar el feminismo como una perspectiva política y una forma de vida, pero los varones que elijan hacerlo deben posicionarse en contra de los privilegios que de otra manera podrían haber dado por sentados.

he sat amongst us, in his crimson robe and girdle, as one bringing us news from a far land, with a curious habit of saying now and again "Shiva! Shiva!" and wearing that look of mingled gentleness and loftiness, that one sees on the faces of those who live much in meditation, that look, perhaps, that Raphael has painted for us, on the brow of the Sistine Child.

While across patriarchies a common response is to view women as dangerous antagonists to be subdued, [Sudhir] Kakar says the 'defensive mode' of Indian male fantasy takes a specific form - that of 'desexualization, either of the self or of the woman', the former through celibacy and ascetic longings, and the latter through transforming the woman into either a maternal automation or an 'androgynous virgin

ஐந்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு ஒருமுறை ஒரு அரசியல் கட்சி இந்தியாவைக் குத்தகைக்கு எடுத்துக்கொண்டு, மக்கள் பணத்தை அந்தக் கட்சிக்காரர்கள் சூறையாடுவார்கள். பிறகு, அடுத்த தேர்தலில் இதுவரை எதிர்க்கட்சியாக இருந்த கட்சி ஆட்சிக்கு வந்து அந்தக் கட்சியின் ஆட்கள் மக்கள் பணத்தைக் கொள்ளையடிப்பார்கள்.

ஹிட்லரின் வதைமுகாம்களுக்கு யூதர்களை லாரிகளில் அள்ளிப் போட்டுக் கொண்டு போவார்கள். அதைவிடக் கொடுமையானது இந்தியாவின் மாநகர பஸ் மற்றும் ரயில் போக்குவரத்து.

பிணங்களிலிருந்து தனது உணவை எடுத்துக் கொள்ளும் கழுகுகளைப் போல இலங்கையில் விழும் தமிழ்ப் பிணங்களிலிருந்து தங்களுக்கு எத்தனை பாராளுமன்ற சீட்டுகள் கிடைக்கும் என்று கணக்கிட்டுக் கொண்டிருக்கின்றன தமிழ்நாட்டின் இரண்டு அரசியல் கழுகுகள். இலங்கைத் தமிழருக்காக கருணாநிதி விடும் கண்ணீர் அத்தனையும் வெறும் கபட நாடகம் என்பதை மக்கள் புரிந்துகொண்டு விட்டனர். இன்றைய

There’s no arrival in feminism, only departures upon departures. In Seeing Like a Feminist , Nivedita Menon reassures me that feminism is not about a moment of final triumph over patriarchy but about the gradual transformation of society so decisively that old markers shift forever.

மெசபடோமிய சுமேரிய எழுத்து வடிவங்கள், கிரேக்க எழுத்து வடிவங்கள் என்று ஆய்வாளர்கள் குழம்பிக் கொண்டாலும், அஸ்கோ பர்போலா, ஐராவதம் மகாதேவன், ஆர். பாலகிருஷ்ணன் போன்ற சிந்து வெளி ஆய்வாளர்கள் சிந்துவெளி உருவ எழுத்துகளை முந்து தமிழி எழுத்து வடிவம் என்றும், ப்ரோட்டோ திராவிட எழுத்துகள் என்றும் தொடர்ச்சியாக நிறுவி வந்துள்ளனர்.

வறண்டு போன கக்ரா-ஹக்கர் நதிதான் வேதங்களில் குறிப்பிடப்படும் சரசுவதி ஆறா? கிட்டத்தட்ட 2000 ஆண்டுகள் பல்வேறு

A feminist perspective recognizes that the hierarchical organizing of the world around gender is key to maintaining social order;

இது ஒரு மனிதனின் சொல்லுக்கு மதிப்பளித்து இன்னொரு மனிதன் நடந்துகொள்ளும் முறை. இதற்கும், ‘உறவின் வலிமை’, ‘கலாச்சார சிறப்பு’ என்று வெவ்வேறு பெயர்களில் ஒருவரை ஒருவர் சுரண்டி வாழ்வதற்கும் எந்தவித சம்பந்தமும் இல்லை என்றே கொள்கிறேன்.

குறைந்தபட்சம் இருபது பசங்கள் படித்தால்தான் ஜஸ்டிஃபிகேஷன். அஞ்சு வகுப்புகளுக்கும் சேர்த்து இருபது பசங்கள். ஒரு டீச்சர். அவரே ஹெட்மாஸ்டரும். இருபது பேரில் ஒரு தலை குறைந்தால்கூட டீச்சருக்கு வேலை போய்விடும். அதாவது, பள்ளிக்கூடம் இருக்காது. ஆனால் இருபது பசங்களைப் பிடிப்பதுதானே பெரிய வேலை! ‘என்ன, பிடிப்பதா?’ ‘இல்லேன்னா அமுக்குறதுன்னு வச்சுக்குங்க. பசங்க இஸ்கூலுக்குப் போகாம டிமிக்கி குடுத்துருவானுங்க. டீச்சர் அஞ்சாம்ப்பு பசங்களோட வந்து சின்னப் பசங்கள பன்னி புடிக்கிற மாதிரி புடிச்சிக்கிட்டுப் போயிருவாங்க. அஞ்சாம்ப்பு பசங்கதான் பெரிய பசங்க. அவுனுங்கள வச்சுத்தான் புடிக்கிறது. பன்னி வேட்ட மாதிரிதான்.

பழக்க வழக்கங்களில் லலிதமாயித்தல் என்பதற்கு ஒரு குறிப் பிட்ட வாழ்க்கை நிலை தேவையாயிருக்கிறது.

Everytime your hand is in mine The fate lines on my palm soften As if they’re bringing our stars align We should hold hands more often.

Will you hold me Nick And fulfill this craving, Touch my waist, And trace in Italics? And kiss my lips, For they are laced With a veiled wish. Hold aloft my chin, Like you want to win Me, and on my skin, Tell me can you sniff A submission to sin? Look into my eyes Dearest, can you read My peering soul script? Because it says honey, That you are my beginning And the endings of my end.