“
Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands - two equally harmful disciplines.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir
“
And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Ham on Rye)
“
Art, literature, and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim, one must first unequivocally posit oneself as a freedom. The restrictions that education and custom impose on a woman limit her grasp of the universe...Indeed, for one to become a creator, it is not enough to be cultivated, that is, to make going to shows and meeting people part of one's life; culture must be apprehended through the free movement of a transcendence; the spirit with all its riches must project itself in an empty sky that is its to fill; but if a thousand fine bonds tie it to the earth, its surge is broken. The girl today can certainly go out alone, stroll in the Tuileries; but I have already said how hostile the street is: eyes everywhere, hands waiting: if she wanders absentmindedly, her thoughts elsewhere, if she lights a cigarette in a cafe, if she goes to the cinema alone, an unpleasant incident can quickly occur; she must inspire respect by the way she dresses and behaves: this concern rivets her to the ground and self. "Her wings are clipped." At eighteen, T.E. Lawrence went on a grand tour through France by bicycle; a young girl would never be permitted to take on such an adventure...Yet such experiences have an inestimable impact: this is how an individual in the headiness of freedom and discovery learns to look at the entire world as his fief...[The girl] may feel alone within the world: she never stands up in front of it, unique and sovereign.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
“
Legend holds that seesaws became popular with girls because on the upswing they were able to catch a glimpse of the world beyond their cloistered walls.
”
”
Alan Brennert (Honolulu)
“
Tempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now.”
“You won’t,” Shane said. That made Morley’s eyes open wide.
“Why not? Jacob and Patience were quite specific—they’re concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy.”
“Because if you kill me and Eve, you’ll make her your enemy. This girl won’t stop until she sees you all pay.”
Claire had no idea whom he was talking about—she didn’t feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.
Then she understood. “I’d hunt you down,” she said quietly. “I’d use every resource I have to do it.
And you know I’d win.”
Morley seemed impressed. “She is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Fade Out (The Morganville Vampires, #7))
“
Alliance-based activism begins with the recognition that we are all individuals, each with a limited history and experiencing a largely unique set of privileges, expectations, assumptions, and restrictions. Thus, none of us have "superior knowledge" when it comes to sexuality and gender. By calling ourselves an alliance, we explicitly acknowledge that we are working toward a common goal [...], while simultaneously recognizing and respecting our many differences.
”
”
Julia Serano (Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity)
“
She needed a world without so many standards and restrictions and expectations–one more friendly to a girl who thought differently from other people.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Enchanter Heir (The Heir Chronicles, #4))
“
I suppose it is because I have lived rather a restricted life myself that I have found so much enjoyment in remembering what I have learned in these last years about brave people and strange scenes. I have sat here day after day this winter, sleeping a good deal in my chair, hardly knowing if I was in London or the Gulf country, dreaming of the blazing sunshine, of poddy-dodging and black stockmen, of Cairns and of Green Island. Of a girl that I met forty years too late, and of her life in that small town that I shall never see again, that holds so much of my affection.
”
”
Nevil Shute
“
And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
The girl you were died; the potion of death was what all of us women swallow sooner or later. Have you noticed how at puberty the Amazon-like energy we are born with fades and we turn into doubt-filled creatures with clipped wings? The woman left trapped in the silo is also you, a prisoner of the restrictions of adult life. The female condition is a disgrace, Isabel, it’s like having rocks tied to your ankles so you can’t fly.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Paula: A Memoir)
“
Safety is, I believe, an inherently classed, raced, and gendered experience that frequently runs the risk of being used for regressive ends—ironically, for restricting the freedoms of the vulnerable, those who are never really safe. Often, we see the call for safety actually reinforce the power of oppressive institutions, like the police and the prison system, in our lives. When we choose safety over liberation, our movements fail.
”
”
Kai Cheng Thom (I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World)
“
Once you've ridden the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel's kinda restricting.
”
”
Daria Snadowsky (Anatomy of a Single Girl (Anatomy, #2))
“
When I told Jamie I loved her for the first time, it meant something different from the last time I told her I loved her. But both times, and every time in between, it was true. I felt it in my bones. Sometimes I felt that love still knocking around my body. It was like a fish, once granted an entire ocean to swim in, now restricted to a tiny bowl. Still, it moved within me.
”
”
Katie Heaney (Girl Crushed)
“
Es isn't a man, she's a woman. But it really doesn't matter. I love her as she is, whatever that body is. People can be so restrictive when it comes to love, but where's the sense in that?" I
”
”
Karpov Kinrade (Vampire Girl (Vampire Girl, #1))
“
We must have imagination, awakened by the uncertainty of being able to attain our object, to create a goal which hides our other goal from us, and by substituting for sensual pleasures the idea of penetrating into a life prevents us from recognizing that pleasure, from tasting it true savor, from restricting it to its own range.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
In this martial world dominated by men, women had little place. The Church's teachings might underpin feudal morality, yet when it came to the practicalities of life, a ruthless pragmatism often came into play. Kings and noblemen married for political advantage, and women rarely had any say in how they or their wealth were to be disposed in marriage. Kings would sell off heiresses and rich widows to the highest bidder, for political or territorial advantage, and those who resisted were heavily fined.
Young girls of good birth were strictly reared, often in convents, and married off at fourteen or even earlier to suit their parents' or overlord's purposes. The betrothal of infants was not uncommon, despite the church's disapproval. It was a father's duty to bestow his daughters in marriage; if he was dead, his overlord or the King himself would act for him. Personal choice was rarely and issue.
Upon marriage, a girl's property and rights became invested in her husband, to whom she owed absolute obedience. Every husband had the right to enforce this duty in whichever way he thought fit--as Eleanor was to find out to her cost. Wife-beating was common, although the Church did at this time attempt to restrict the length of the rod that a husband might use.
”
”
Alison Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (World Leaders Past & Present))
“
Girls disappear every day. Jeju women, especially, disappear all the time once they are older. They think they are free to act without restrictions and so venture out into the world. They disappear to live with their sweethearts, to hide their pregnancies, to sell themselves, to become gisaengs. The reasons are endless.
”
”
June Hur (The Forest of Stolen Girls)
“
Someday in our future it may be possible for women everywhere not to be restricted to those roles society deems natural, God-given, or appropriately feminine. A woman will not need to be disguised as a man to go outside, to climb a tree, or to make money. She will not need to make an effort to resemble a man, or to think like one. Instead, she can speak a language that men will want to understand. She will be free to wear a suit or a skirt or something entirely different. She will not count as three-quarters of a man, and her testimony will not be worth half a man's. She will be recognized as someone's sister, mother, and daughter. And maybe, someday, her identity will not be confined to how she relates to a brother, a son, or a father. Instead, she will be recognized as an individual, whose life holds value only in itself.
”
”
Jenny Nordberg (The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan)
“
You couldn't do this and you couldn't do that, but life went on.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'
Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.
("The Three Strangers")
”
”
Thomas Hardy (Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library))
“
The restrictive eating inherent in diets treats the body as a separate, inferior part of the human being to be manipulated as desired by the mind, as though the body and mind are in an adversarial relationship.
”
”
Sean Coons (Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight)
“
[Neurotic] pride is both so vulnerable and so precious that it also must be protected in the future. The neurotic may build an elaborate system of avoidances in the hope of circumventing future hurts. This too is a process that goes on automatically. He is not aware of wanting to avoid an activity because it might hurt his pride. He just avoids it, often without even being aware that he is. The process pertains to activities, to associations with people, and it may put a check on realistic strivings and efforts. If it is widespread it can actually cripple a person's life. He does not embark on any serious pursuits commensurate with his gifts lest he fail to be a brilliant success. He would like to write or to paint and does not dare to start. He does not dare to approach girls lest they reject him. [...] He withdraws from social contacts lest he be self-conscious. So, according to his economic status, he either does nothing worthwhile or sticks to a mediocre job and restricts his expenses rigidly. In more than one way he lives beneath his means. In the long run this makes it necessary for him to withdraw farther from others, because he cannot face the fact of lagging behind his age group and therefore shuns comparisons or questions from anybody about his work. In order to endure life he must now entrench himself more firmly in his private fantasy-world. But, since all these measures are more a camouflage than a remedy for his pride, he may start to cultivate his neuroses because the neurosis with a capital N then becomes a precious alibi for the lack of accomplishment.
”
”
Karen Horney (Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization)
“
The assumption that femininity is always structured by and performed for a male gaze fails to take seriously queer feminine desire. The radical feminist critiques of femininity also disregarded the fact that not all who are (seen as) feminine are women. Crucially, what is viewed as appropriately feminine is not only defined in relation to maleness or masculinity, but through numerous intersections of power including race, sexuality, ability, and social class. In other words, white, heterosexual, binary gender-conforming, able-bodied, and upper- or middle-class femininity is privileged in relation to other varieties. Any social system may contain multiple femininities that differ in status, and which relate to each other as well as to masculinity. As highlighted by “effeminate” gay men, trans women, femmes, drag queens, and “bad girls,” it is possible to be perceived as excessively, insufficiently, or wrongly feminine without for that sake being seen as masculine. Finally, the view of femininity as a restrictive yet disposable mask presupposes that emancipation entails departure into neutral (or masculine) modes of being. This is a tenuous assumption, as the construction of selfhood is entangled with gender, and conceptions of androgyny and gender neutrality similarly hinge on culturally specific ideas of masculinity and femininity.
”
”
Manon Hedenborg White (Double Toil and Gender Trouble? Performativity and Femininity in the Cauldron of Esotericism Research)
“
It is ironic, really, that the girl who didn’t want to be a girl has been one of the most popular literary heroines of all time. Her popularity speaks volumes about the deeply unsettled feelings that girls of all backgrounds have felt as they approached the restrictions of womanhood.
”
”
Anne Boyd Rioux (Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters)
“
That's Jenna. She's one of those girls who talk just as much with her hands as with her mouth, which means between the three of them you don't get a word in. But she's a little restricted by the thick steel cuffs around her wrists, so right now she is just wriggling her fingers. Vigorously.
”
”
John David Anderson (Sidekicked (Sidekicked, #1))
“
When all the public eye sees are headscarves instead of individual stories, our community is collectively tokenized. It creates the perception that opportunity is limited and only a rare few of us can make it. Whenever that happens to an already marginalized community, it pits its own members in a competition against one another instead of against the restrictive frameworks that put us in that position in the first place. The first hijabi whatever won't eliminate Islamophobia just as the first black president hasn't eliminated racism, though both are signifiers of some type of progress — symbols of ascending beyond adversity.
”
”
Amani Al-Khatahtbeh (Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age Story)
“
fishing, my philosophy is that men will treat women like one of these two things: a sports fish or a keeper. How we meet, how the conversation goes, how the relationship develops, and the demands you make on a man will all determine whether you’ll be treated like a sports fish—a throwback—or a keeper, the kind of woman a man can envision settling down with. And the way we separate the two is very simple, as I explain next. A SPORTS FISH . . . Doesn’t have any rules, requirements, respect for herself, or guidelines, and we men can pick up her scent a mile away. She’s the party girl who takes a sip of her Long Island iced tea or a shot of her Patrón, then announces to her suitor that she just wants to “date and see how it goes,” and she’s the conservatively dressed woman at the office who is a master at networking, but clueless about how to approach men. She has no plans for any ongoing relationships, is not expecting anything in particular from a man, and sets absolutely not nary one condition or restriction on anyone standing before her—she makes it very clear that she’s just along for whatever is getting ready to happen. For sure, as soon as she lets a man know through words and action that he can treat her just any old kind of way, he will do just
”
”
Steve Harvey (Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Expanded Edition: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment)
“
Under Zia’s regime life for women in Pakistan became much more restricted. Jinnah said, “No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women.” But General Zia brought in Islamic laws which reduced a woman’s evidence in court to count for only half that of a man’s. Soon our prisons were full of cases like that of a thirteen-year-old girl who was raped and became pregnant and was then sent to prison for adultery because she couldn’t produce four male witnesses to prove it was a crime.
”
”
Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban)
“
The feminine mystique, elevated by Freudian theory into a scientific religion, sounded a single, overprotective, life-restricting, future-denying note for women. Girls who grew up playing baseball, baby-sitting, mastering geometry -- almost independent enough, almost resourceful enough, to meet the problems of the fission-fusion era -- were told by the most advanced thinkers of our time to go back and live their lives as if they were Noras, restricted to the doll's house by Victorian prejudice. And their own respect and awe for the authority of science -- anthropology, sociology, psychology share that authority now -- kept them from questioning the feminine mystique.
”
”
Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)
“
Adultxdating.us #1 adult social network for casual sex with hot . Voted the #1 Casual Dating Site by the Online Dating Council. 100% FREE online adult dating. Message, pictures and live chat. Flirt and date for zero cost with no limits or restrictions whatsoever.original adult sex hook up site! Adultxdating.us has more hot and sexy single members looking to get laid tonight than any other site.
”
”
adultxdating.us
“
Really, it was my fickleness, I sometimes think, that they found unendurable. If I had restricted myself to only one of their sweet girls, and married her, and chewed her neck in private, I suppose I might, like any eccentric cousin, have been made almost welcome among family and friends in the circle of the hearth. But perhaps I misjudge what degree of eccentricity even an Englishman can
tolerate.
”
”
Fred Saberhagen
“
In 1970, Alix Kates Shulman, a wife, mother, and writer who had joined the Women's Liberation Movement in New York, wrote a poignant account of how the initial equality and companionship of her marriage had deteriorated once she had children. "[N]ow I was restricted to the company of two demanding preschoolers and to the four walls of an apartment. It seemed unfair that while my husband's life had changed little when the children were born, domestic life had become the only life I had." His job became even more demanding, requiring late nights and travel out of town. Meanwhile it was virtually impossible for her to work at home. "I had no time for myself; the children were always there." Neither she nor her husband was happy with the situation, so they did something radical, which received considerable media coverage: they wrote up a marriage agreement... In it they asserted that "each member of the family has an equal right to his/her own time, work, values and choices... The ability to earn more money is already a privilege which must not be compounded by enabling the larger earner to buy out of his/her duties and put the burden on the one who earns less, or on someone hired from outside." The agreement insisted that domestic jobs be shared fifty-fifty and, get this girls, "If one party works overtime in any domestic job, she/he must be compensated by equal work by the other." The agreement then listed a complete job breakdown... in other worde, the agreement acknowledged the physical and the emotional/mental work involved in parenting and valued both. At the end of the article, Shulman noted how much happier she and her husband were as a result of the agreement. In the two years after its inception, Shulman wrote three children's books, a biography and a novel. But listen, too, to what it meant to her husband, who was now actually seeing his children every day. After the agreement had been in effect for four months, "our daughter said one day to my husband, 'You know, Daddy, I used to love Mommy more than you, but now I love you both the same.
”
”
Susan J. Douglas (The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women)
“
The noise of the town some floors below was greatly muted. In a state of complete mental detachment, he went over the events, the circumstances and the stages of destruction in their lives. Seen in the frozen light of a restrictive past, everything seemed clear, conclusive and indisputable. Now it seemed unthinkable that a girl of seventeen shoudl be so naive; it was particularly unbelieveable that a girl of seventeen should set so much store by love. If the surveys in the magazines were to be believed, things had changed a great deal in the twenty-five years since Annabelle was a teenager. Young girls today were more sensible, more sophisticated. Nowadays they worried more about their exam results and did their best to ensure they would have a decent career. For them, going out with boys was simply a game, a distraction motivated as much by narcissism as by sexual pleasure. They later would try to make a good marriage, basing their decision on a range of social and professional criteria, as well as on shared interests and tastes. Of course, in doing this they cut themselves off from any possibility of happiness--a condition indissociable from the outdated, intensely close bonds so incompatible with the exercise of reason--but this was their attempt to escape the moral and emotional suffering which had so tortured their forebears. This hope was, unfortunately, rapidly disappointed; the passing of love's torments simply left the field clear for boredom, emptiness and an anguished wait for old age and death. The second part of Annabelle's life therefore had been much more dismal and sad than the first, of which, in the end, she had no memory at all.
”
”
Michel Houellebecq
“
As a society and as parents we face a challenge without precedent. We have to help girls and boys make a transition to a gendered adulthood, to adult life as women and men in a culture in which women can do anything, including being rocket scientists, and men can do anything, including staying home to raise a baby. We have to find ways to value and cherish gender differences without restricting freedom of opportunity.
”
”
Leonard Sax (Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences)
“
The sight of a pretty girl provokes in him an overwhelming reaction of appreciation and approval, and correlatively his acquisitive instinct, but he has never married. Why not? Because he knows that if he had a wife, his reaction to pretty girls, now pure and frank and free, would not only be intolerably adulterated but would also be under surveillance and subject to restriction by authority. So the governor always stops him short of disaster.
”
”
Rex Stout (Golden Spiders)
“
If I had been able to get out and speak to one of these girls we passed, I might well have been disillusioned by some flaw in her complexion that I had been unaware of from the carriage. (In that case, it would suddenly have felt impossible for me to make any effort to become part of her life. For beauty is a succession of hypotheses, and ugliness restricts these by blocking the way that seemed to be already leading us into the heart of the unknown.)
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
It is quite likely that this Jewish community, like any other, perhaps more than any other, could boast of many charms, qualities, and virtues. The enjoyment of these, however, was restricted to its members. The fact was they were disliked; and this, once they became aware of it, became a proof in their eyes of anti-Semitism, against which they ranged themselves in a dense phalanx, closing ranks in the face of a world that was, in any case, of no mind to join their group.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
But there’s this way he drums his fingers on the table. Not even like really drumming. More like in-way between drumming and like this scratching, picking, the way you see somebody picking at dead skin. And without any kind of rhythm, see, constant and never-stopping but with no kind of rhythm you could grab onto and follow and stand. Totally like whacked, insane. Like the kind of sounds you can imagine a girl hears in her head right before she kills her whole family because somebody took the last bit of peanut butter or something. You know what I’m saying? The sound of a fucking mind coming apart. You know what I’m saying? So yeah, yes, OK, the short answer is when he wouldn’t quit with the drumming at supper I sort of poked him with my fork. Sort of. I could see how maybe somebody could have thought I sort of stabbed him. I offered to get the fork out, though. Let me just say I’m ready to make amends at like anytime. For my part in it. I’m owning my part in it is what I’m saying. Can I ask am I going to get Restricted for this? Cause I have this Overnight tomorrow that Gene he approved already in the Overnight Log. If you want to look. But I’m not trying to get out of owning my part of the, like, occurrence. If my Higher Power who I choose to call God works through you saying I’ve got some kind of a punishment due, I won’t try to get out of a punishment. If I’ve got one due. I just wanted to ask. Did I mention I’m grateful to be here?
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
“
I had an economics professor who put it to our class bluntly: “When you restrict the supply of something, the price goes up. When the price goes up, you have more people working on more solutions to distribute the product. The market corrects for that.” According to him, the only two solutions that dramatically affect the price of an illegal commodity are decriminalizing it and easing restrictions or going the opposite direction and making sale and possession capital offenses. He claimed that educating the public on the dangers had only a nominal effect.
”
”
Andrew Mayne (The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit, #1))
“
must hand in their bicycles, Jews are banned from trams and are forbidden to drive. Jews are only allowed to do their shopping between three and five o’clock and then only in shops which bear the placard “Jewish shop”. Jews must be indoors by eight o’clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that hour. Jews are forbidden to visit theatres, cinemas, and other places of entertainment. Jews may not take part in public sports. Swimming baths, tennis courts, hockey fields, and other sports grounds are all prohibited to them. Jews may not visit Christians. Jews must go to Jewish schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
When Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling published the piece "TERF Wars" on her blog in the summer of 2020, she specifically mentioned her fear that many transgender men are actually Autistic girls who weren't conventionally feminine, and have been influenced by transactivists on the internet into identifying out of womanhood. In presenting herself as defending disabled "girls," she argued for restricting young trans Autistic people's ability to self-identity and access necessary services and health care.
Rowling's perspective (which she shares with many gender critical folks) is deeply dehumanising to both the trans and Autistic communities.
”
”
Devon Price (Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity)
“
The imagination, aroused by the possibility that it will not achieve its aim, is obliged to mask it with another, and, by replacing sensual pleasure with the idea of penetrating someone’s life, makes sure we neither recognize that pleasure, experience its true flavor, nor restrict it to its dimension of mere pleasure. If we were to set eyes on a fish for the first time as it might be served on a dinner table, it would hardly appear to be worth the countless ruses and devious tricks required to land it, unless between us and it there were afternoons spent fishing, eddies through which glimpses barely caught of fleshy gleams and an imprecise shape ruffle the surface of our indecision about what to do with them, in the blue fluidity of a transparent and mobile medium.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use street-cars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to attend theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use street-cars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to attend theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8:00 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
YOU ARE THE BOSS. Hosting is not democratic, just like design isn’t. Structure helps good parties, like restrictions help good design. Introduce people to each other A LOT. But take your time with it. Be generous. Very generous with food, wine, and with compliments/introductions. If you have a reception before people sit, make sure there are some snacks so blood sugar level is kept high and people are happy. ALWAYS do placement. Always. Placement MUST be boy/girl/boy/girl, etc. And no, it does not matter if someone is gay. Seat people next to people who do different things but that those things might be complementary. Or make sure they have something else in common; a passion or something rare is best. And tell people what they have in common. Within each table, people should introduce themselves, but it must be short. Name, plus something they like or what they did on the weekend or maybe something that can relate to the gathering. For dessert, people can switch, but best to have it organized: tell every other person at the table to move to another seat.
”
”
Priya Parker (The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters)
“
They don't have the time to take on animals with dietary restrictions and missing legs."
"Do you think I don't know that? That's precisely why they're all here with me. No one else would take them. Angus, for example." She moved toward the Highland steer. "Some foolish merchant traveled to Scotland on holiday and decided to bring his wife a pet calf from the Highlands. Never stopped to think about the fact that he would grow."
"Surely people aren't that stupid."
"Oh, it happens all the time. But usually they make that mistake with pups or ponies. Not cattle." She shook her head. "They dehorned him in the worst, most painful way. When he came to me, the poor dear's wounds were infected. Infested, too. He could have perished from the fly-strike alone. That man was stupid, indeed. The only thing he got right was his choice of calf. Angus is exceedingly adorable."
Adorable?
Gabe eyed the beast. The animal stood as tall as Gabe's shoulder, and it smelled... the way cattle smell. Shaggy red fur covered its eyes like a blindfold, and its black, spongy nose glistened.
”
”
Tessa Dare (The Wallflower Wager (Girl Meets Duke, #3))
“
You ever choked? You know what I mean, fumbled at the goal line, stuck your foot in your mouth when you were trying to ask that girl on a date, had a brain freeze on the final exam you were totally prepared for, lipped out a three-foot putt to win the golf tournament, or been paralyzed by the feeling of “Oh my god life can’t get any better, do I really deserve this?” I have. What happens when we get that feeling? We clench up, get short of breath, self-conscious. We have an out-of-body experience where we observe ourselves in the third person, no longer present, now not doing well what we are there to do. We become voyeurs of our moment because we let it become bigger than us, and in doing so, we just became less involved in it and more impressed with it. Why does this happen? It happens because when we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we then create a fictitious ceiling, a restriction, over the expectations we have of our own performance in that moment. We get tense, we focus on the outcome instead of the activity, and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result, or it’s too good to be true. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t, and it’s not our right to believe it does or is. Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great
”
”
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
“
Images of people in the Middle East dressing like Westerners, spending like Westerners, that is what the voters watching TV here at home want to see. That is a visible sign that we really are winning the war of ideas—the struggle between consumption and economic growth, and religious tradition and economic stagnation.
I thought, why are those children coming onto the streets more and more often? It’s not anything we have done, is it? It’s not any speeches we have made, or countries we have invaded, or new constitutions we have written, or sweets we have handed out to children, or football matches between soldiers and the locals. It’s because they, too, watch TV.
They watch TV and see how we live here in the West.
They see children their own age driving sports cars. They see teenagers like them, instead of living in monastic frustration until someone arranges their marriages, going out with lots of different girls, or boys. They see them in bed with lots of different girls and boys. They watch them in noisy bars, bottles of lager upended over their mouths, getting happy, enjoying the privilege of getting drunk. They watch them roaring out support or abuse at football matches. They see them getting on and off planes, flying from here to there without restriction and without fear, going on endless holidays, shopping, lying in the sun. Especially, they see them shopping: buying clothes and PlayStations, buying iPods, video phones, laptops, watches, digital cameras, shoes, trainers, baseball caps. Spending money, of which there is always an unlimited supply, in bars and restaurants, hotels and cinemas. These children of the West are always spending. They are always restless, happy and with unlimited access to cash.
I realised, with a flash of insight, that this was what was bringing these Middle Eastern children out on the streets. I realised that they just wanted to be like us. Those children don’t want to have to go to the mosque five times a day when they could be hanging out with their friends by a bus shelter, by a phone booth or in a bar. They don’t want their families to tell them who they can and can’t marry. They might very well not want to marry at all and just have a series of partners. I mean, that’s what a lot of people do. It is no secret, after that serial in the Daily Mail, that that is what I do. I don’t necessarily need the commitment. Why should they not have the same choices as me? They want the freedom to fly off for their holidays on easy Jet. I know some will say that what a lot of them want is just one square meal a day or the chance of a drink of clean water, but on the whole the poor aren’t the ones on the street and would not be my target audience. They aren’t going to change anything, otherwise why are they so poor? The ones who come out on the streets are the ones who have TVs. They’ve seen how we live, and they want to spend.
”
”
Paul Torday (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen)
“
The preconventional level of moral reasoning, which develops during our first nine years of life, considers rules as fixed and absolute. In the first of its two stages (the stage of obedience and punishment), we determine whether actions are right or wrong by whether or not they lead to a punishment. In the second stage (the stage of individualism and exchange), right and wrong are determined by what brings rewards. The desires and needs of others are important, but only in a reciprocal sense—“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Morality at this level is governed by consequence. The second level of moral reasoning starts in adolescence, and continues into early adulthood. It sees us starting to consider the intention behind behavior, rather than just the consequences. Its first stage, often called the “good boy—nice girl” stage, is when we begin classifying moral behavior as to whether it will help or please. Being seen as good becomes the goal. In the second stage (the law and order stage), we start to equate “being good” with respecting authority and obeying the law, believing that this protects and sustains society. The third level of moral development is when we move beyond simple conformity, but Kohlberg suggested that only around 10–15 percent of us ever reach this level. In its first stage (the social contract and individual rights stage), we still respect authority, but there is a growing recognition that individual rights can supersede laws that are destructive or restrictive. We come to realize that human life is more sacred than just following rules. The sixth and final stage (the stage of universal ethical principles) is when our own conscience becomes the ultimate judge, and we commit ourselves to equal rights and respect for all. We may even resort to civil disobedience in the name of universal principles, such as justice. Kohlberg’s six-stage theory was considered radical, because it stated that morality is not imposed on children (as psychoanalysts said), nor is it about avoiding bad feelings (as the behaviorists had thought). Kohlberg believed children developed a moral code and awareness of respect, empathy, and love through interaction with others.
”
”
Nigel Benson (The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained)
“
Belgium,” said the girl, “I hardly like to say it.” “Belgium?” exclaimed Arthur. A drunken seven-toed sloth staggered past, gawked at the word and threw itself backward at a blurry-eyed pterodactyl, roaring with displeasure. “Are we talking,” said Arthur, “about the very flat country, with all the EEC and the fog?” “What?” said the girl. “Belgium,” said Arthur. “Raaaaaarrrchchchchch!” screeched the pterodactyl. “Grrruuuuuurrrghhhh,” agreed the seven-toed sloth. “They must be thinking of Ostend Hoverport,” muttered Arthur. He turned back to the girl. “Have you ever been to Belgium in fact?” he asked brightly and she nearly hit him. “I think,” she said, restraining herself, “that you should restrict that sort of remark to something artistic.” “You sound as if I just said something unspeakably rude.” “You did.” In today’s modern Galaxy there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. So, for instance, when in a recent national speech the Financial Minister of the Royal World Estate of Quarlvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for a while and the king seemed to have died and most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy was now in what he called “one whole joojooflop situation,” everyone was so pleased that he felt able to come out and say it that they quite failed to note that their entire five-thousand-year-old civilization had just collapsed overnight. But even though words like “joojooflop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the Galaxy except for use in Serious Screenplays. There is also, or was, one planet where they didn’t know what it meant, the stupid turlingdromes. —
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1-5))
“
If we consider the possibility that all women–from the infant suckling her mother’s breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother’s milk-smell in her own; to two women, like Virginia Woolf’s Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory; to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women–exist on a lesbian continuum, we can see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we identify ourselves as lesbian or not. It allows us to connect aspects of woman-identification as diverse as the impudent, intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year-olds and the banding together of those women of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries known as Beguines who “shared houses, rented to one another, bequeathed houses to their room-mates … in cheap subdivided houses in the artisans’ area of town,” who “practiced Christian virtue on their own, dressing and living simply and not associating with men,” who earned their livings as spinners, bakers, nurses, or ran schools for young girls, and who managed–until the Church forced them to disperse–to live independent both of marriage and of conventual restrictions. It allows us to connect these women with the more celebrated “Lesbians” of the women’s school around Sappho of the seventh century B.C.; with the secret sororities and economic networks reported among African women; and with the Chinese marriage resistance sisterhoods–communities of women who refused marriage, or who if married often refused to consummate their marriages and soon left their husbands–the only women in China who were not footbound and who, Agnes Smedley tells us, welcomed the births of daughters and organized successful women’s strikes in the silk mills. It allows us to connect and compare disparate individual instances of marriage resistance: for example, the type of autonomy claimed by Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth-century white woman genius, with the strategies available to Zora Neale Hurston, a twentieth-century black woman genius. Dickinson never married, had tenuous intellectual friendships with men, lived self-convented in her genteel father’s house, and wrote a lifetime of passionate letters to her sister-in-law Sue Gilbert and a smaller group of such letters to her friend Kate Scott Anthon. Hurston married twice but soon left each husband, scrambled her way from Florida to Harlem to Columbia University to Haiti and finally back to Florida, moved in and out of white patronage and poverty, professional success and failure; her survival relationships were all with women, beginning with her mother. Both of these women in their vastly different circumstances were marriage resisters, committed to their own work and selfhood, and were later characterized as “apolitical ”. Both were drawn to men of intellectual quality; for both of them women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.
”
”
Adrienne Rich (Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence)
“
(The very next day)
'I am enduring will standing alone bare and yes, I am completely naked to the world outside. So, unprotected by the atmosphere above and around me, so unlike- the day, I was born into this hellish world.'
'My life was not always like this! Still as of now, I stand trembling on top of this cruel land, which I call my hereditary land or my home-town.'
'Some still call me by my name, and that is 'Nevaeh May Natalie.'
'Some of the others, like the kids I go to school within this land, have other titles for me.'
'However, you can identify me by the name of 'Nevaeh.' That is if you want to.'
'I do not think that even matters to you, my name is… it has been replaced and it is not significant anymore. Nor does my name matter to anyone out there for miles around. At least that is the way it seems to me, standing here now as I see the bus come to take me there.'
'Names or not said to me, 'I feel alone!' I whispered to myself.'
'It is like I am living a dream. I didn't think my nightmare of orgasmic, tragic, and drizzling emotions pouring in my mind would last this long.'
('Class, faces, names, done.')
'It like a thunderstorm pounding in my brain, as it is today outside. I have come home from yet another day of hell that would be called- school to you.'
'I don't even go into the house until I have this restricting schoolgirl uniform torn off my body. I feel like my skin is crawling with bugs when it is on my figure.'
(Outside in the fields, next to the tracks)
'It's the middle- September and I am standing in the rain. It is so cold, so lonely, and so loveless! Additionally, this is not usual for me, I am always bare around my house, I have my reason you'll see.'
'The rain has been falling on me like knives ever since the moment, I got off the yellow bus.'
'A thunderbolt clattered, more resonant than anything ever heard previously.'
'All the rain is matting my long brown hair on me as it lies on my backside longer than most girls. Yet I am okay with that at last, I am free.'
(I have freedom)
'To a point! I still feel so trapped by all of them.'
'Ten or twenty minutes have now passed; I am still in the same very spot. Just letting water follow me down. I'm drenched!'
'I can feel the wetness as it lingers in my hair for a while, so unforgivably soaking my body even more as if sinking within me washing me clean.'
'Counting my sanctions, I feel satisfied in a way when I do feel it dropping offends my hair, as if 'God' is still in control of my life, even if I was sent to and damned to hell.'
'Like it is wiping away everything that happened to me today, away from the day of the past too.'
'The wetness is still running down the small of my back thirty minutes must have passed, and it is like my mind is off.'
'Currently, it follows the center point on my back. Then down in-between my petite butt cheeks. Water and bloodstream off my butt to the ground near the heels of my feet. I can feel as if that part of me is washed clean from the day that I had to go through.'
'Some of this shower is cascading off my little face, and it slowly collects on my little boobs, where it beads up and separates into two different watercourses down to my belly button.'
'I eyeball this, as it goes all the way down the front of me. It trickles down on me, to where it turns the color of light pink off my 'Girly Parts.' As they would never be the same.
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez
“
People can be so restrictive when it comes to love, but where's the sense in that?
”
”
Karpov Kinrade (Vampire Girl (Vampire Girl, #1))
“
... the reality and threat of male-perpetrated sexual violence is normalized in the lives of girls and women as a restrictive force.
”
”
Soraya Chemaly (Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger)
“
Maybe tangled will be a spectacular rump. maybe i will adore it: it could happen. But one thing is for sure: tangled will not be rapunzel. And thats too bad , because rapunzel is an specially layered and relevant fairytale, less about the love between a man and a woman than the misguided attempts of a mother trying to protect her daughter from (what she perceives ) as the worlds evils. The tale, you may recall, begins with a mother-to-bes yearning for the taste of rapunzel, a salad green she spies growing in the garden of the sorceress who happens to live next door. The womans craving becomes so intense , she tells her husband that if he doesn't fetch her some, she and their unborn baby will die.
So he steals into the baby's yard, wraps his hands around a plant, and, just as he pulls... she appears in a fury. The two eventually strike a bargain: the mans wife can have as much of the plant as she wants- if she turns over her baby to the witch upon its birth. `i will take care for it like a mother,` the sorceress croons (as if that makes it all right).
Then again , who would you rather have as a mom: the woman who would do anything for you or the one who would swap you in a New York minute for a bowl of lettuce?
Rapunzel grows up, her hair grows down, and when she is twelve-note that age-Old Mother Gothel , as she calls the witch. leads her into the woods, locking her in a high tower which offers no escape and no entry except by scaling the girls flowing tresses. One day, a prince passes by and , on overhearing Rapunzel singing, falls immediately in love (that makes Rapunzel the inverse of Ariel- she is loved sight unseen because of her voice) . He shinnies up her hair to say hello and , depending on the version you read, they have a chaste little chat or get busy conceiving twins.
Either way, when their tryst is discovered, Old Mother Gothel cries, `you wicked child! i thought i had separated you from the world, and yet you deceived me!` There you have it : the Grimm`s warning to parents , centuries before psychologists would come along with their studies and measurements, against undue restriction . Interestingly the prince cant save Rapuzel from her foster mothers wrath. When he sees the witch at the top of the now-severed braids, he jumps back in surprise and is blinded by the bramble that breaks his fall.
He wanders the countryside for an unspecified time, living on roots and berries, until he accidentally stumbles upon his love. She weeps into his sightless eyes, restoring his vision , and - voila!- they rescue each other . `Rapunzel` then, wins the prize for the most egalitarian romance, but that its not its only distinction: it is the only well-known tale in which the villain is neither maimed nor killed. No red-hot shoes are welded to the witch`s feet . Her eyes are not pecked out. Her limbs are not lashed to four horses who speed off in different directions. She is not burned at the stake. Why such leniency? perhaps because she is not, in the end, really evil- she simply loves too much. What mother has not, from time to time, felt the urge to protect her daughter by locking her in a tower? Who among us doesn't have a tiny bit of trouble letting our children go? if the hazel branch is the mother i aspire to be, then Old Mother Gothel is my cautionary tale: she reminds us that our role is not to keep the world at bay but to prepare our daughters so they can thrive within it.
That involves staying close but not crowding them, standing firm in one`s values while remaining flexible. The path to womanhood is strewn with enchantment , but it also rifle with thickets and thorns and a big bad culture that threatens to consume them even as they consume it. The good news is the choices we make for our toodles can influence how they navigate it as teens. I`m not saying that we can, or will, do everything `right,` only that there is power-magic-in awareness.
”
”
Peggy Orenstein (Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture)
“
His knife cleared its sheath before he realized he had drawn it. He held the razor-sharp blade to her throat, his body atremble with the effort it took not to kill her.
She had her eyes squeezed closed, awaiting death. Her fear clung to the air he breathed, so intense he could smell it, taste it. Yet she was biting his arm? Another tremor shook him. He wasn’t sure whose body convulsed, his with rage or hers with terror.
And then realization hit him. She wanted him to kill her. The Comanches called it habbe we-ich-ket, seeking death. His little fledgling had found a way to fight back.
As the truth dawned on him, he began to tremble even more, his knuckles turning white around the hilt of the knife. With one flick of his wrist, he could grant her wish and be forever free of her. Sweat beaded on his face and chest. His breath whined down the restricted passage of his windpipe.
Slowly, the brittle tension flowed out of his body, bringing in its wake a muscle-draining wave of defeat. With great reluctance, he withdrew the knife from her throat. As if she sensed the ebb of his anger, she bit down harder, a final, valiant attempt to goad him into killing her. Maybe the tosi tivo weren’t so stupid, after all. He would be wise to remember that the blade of his temper had a double edge, one that could be turned against him.
Steeling himself against the pain she was inflicting, Hunter stared down her, not quite sure how to get his arm away without knocking her loose with his fist. Suddenly it struck him how absurd the situation was--a Comanche warrior, kneeling over a white woman and doing nothing while she sank her teeth into him. Hunter, the fierce warrior and merciless killer, unable to control a girl half his size?
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
I used to fear that embracing that identity [woman] would be tantamount to cramming myself into some predetermined box. Restricting my possibilities and potential. But now I realize that no matter who I act or what I do or say, I remain a woman-both in the eyes of the world and, more importantly, in the way that I experience myself. While I used to view the "woman" as limiting, I now find it both empowering and limitless.
”
”
Julia Serano (Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity)
“
In 1920, Mary McLeod Bethune, an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil-rights activist traveled through her home state of Florida to encourage women to vote, facing tremendous obstacles at every step along the route. The night before Election Day in November 1920, white-robed Klansmen marched into Bethune’s girls’ school to intimidate the women who had gathered there to get ready to vote, aiming to prevent them from voting even though they had managed to get their names on the voter rolls. Newspapers in Wilmington, Delaware, reported that the numbers of Black women who wanted to register to vote were “unusually large,” but they were turned away for their alleged failure to “comply with Constitutional tests” without any specification of what these tests were. The Birmingham Black newspaper Voice of the People noted that only half a dozen Black women had been registered to vote because the state had applied the same restrictive rules for voting to colored women that they applied to colored men.
”
”
Rafia Zakaria (Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption)
“
Theory and practice may not coincide. A Sikh girl may find her life restricted more than her brother’s even though Sikh teaching is one of gender equality.
”
”
W. Owen Cole (Sikhism - An Introduction: Teach Yourself)
“
Iris Marion Young discusses how some girls learn to “throw like girls”; they learn not to get themselves behind an action, exhibiting what she calls “inhibited intentionality.” She describes how girls often “lack confidence in their capacity to do what needs to be done.” She notes, “We decide beforehand—usually mistakenly—that the task is beyond us and thus give it less than our full effort.”Decisions we make about our capacities are not always our own. We receive messages all the time that tell us who can do what (and who cannot). If you are told you can’t do it, that girls can’t do it, you might doubt whether you can do it; you might not put all of yourself into it. And then when you don’t manage it, you don’t pull it off, the judgment that you are not capable is confirmed. Gender norms sometimes work through a reversal of sequence: we assume we do it because we can, or don’t because we can’t, but often we can do it because we do it, or we can’t because we don’t. Over time, girls learn to inhabit their bodies with less confidence, assuming what they cannot do as a restriction of a horizon of possibility.
”
”
Sara Ahmed (The Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way)
“
Mercifully, in evoking her girls’ dormitory, she restricts herself to one scene.
”
”
Clive James (Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts)
“
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes. Reduce it. A boy is trained as a student up to age twenty-five, restricting sex life. Brahmacārī. So, some of the boys remain naiṣṭhika-brahmacārī [celibate for life]. Because they are given an education and they become fully conversant with spiritual knowledge, they don’t want to marry. And even if they do marry, sex life is restricted. But the basic principle is that one cannot have sex life without being married. Therefore in human society there is marriage, not in animal society. But people are gradually descending from human society to animal society. They are forgetting marriage. That is also predicted in the śāstras [scriptures]. Dāmpatye ’bhirucir hetuḥ: in the Kali-yuga [the present age of quarrel], eventually there will be no marriage; the boy and the girl will simply agree to live together, and their relationship will exist on sexual power. If the man or the woman is deficient in sex life, then there is divorce. So, for this philosophy there are many Western philosophers like Freud and others who have written so many books. But according to Vedic culture, we are interested in sex only for begetting children, that’s all. Not to study the psychology of sex life. There is already natural psychology for that. Even if one does not read any philosophy, he is sexually inclined. Nobody is taught it in the schools and colleges. Everyone already knows how to do it. [He laughs.] That is the general tendency. But education should be given to stop it. That is real education.
”
”
A.C. Prabhupāda (Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers)
“
From the same Badiou piece: Strange is the rage reserved by so many feminist ladies for the few girls wearing the hijab. They have begged poor president Chirac… to crack down on them in the name of the Law. Meanwhile the prostituted female body is everywhere. The most humiliating pornography is universally sold. Advice on sexually exposing bodies lavishes teen magazines day in and day out. A single explanation: a girl must show what she’s got to sell. She’s got to show her goods. She’s got to indicate that, henceforth, the circulation of women abides by the generalized model, and not by restricted exchange. Too bad for bearded fathers and elder brothers! Long live the planetary market! The generalized model is the top fashion model. It used to be taken for granted that an intangible female right is to only have to get undressed in front of the person of her choosing. But no. It is vital to hint at undressing at every instant. Whoever covers up what she puts on the market is not a loyal merchant. Let’s argue the following, then, a pretty strange point: the law on the hijab is a pure capitalist law. It orders femininity to be exposed. In other words, having the female body circulate according to the market paradigm is obligatory. For teenagers, i.e. the teeming center of the entire subjective universe, the law bans any holding back.16
”
”
Nina Power (One Dimensional Woman)
“
Every day. Every single day. We turn on the news, check our phones, or start our computers, and we see the horrific headlines. Tragically, they’ve become commonplace now. We expect them. Terrorists burn entire villages to the ground, with the children’s wailing heard miles away. Christian men are forced to kneel above explosives that are detonated by jihadists. Crucifixions. Beheadings. Christians are buried alive. Missionaries’ sons and daughters are slaughtered. Women are sold into sex slavery—the younger the girl, the higher the price. Radical Islamic terrorists even distribute pamphlets explaining how Islamic law does not forbid the rape of young girls. It breaks our hearts. It makes our stomachs churn. We crave justice. But the slaughter of Christians and other religious minorities and desecration of these religions’ heritages aren’t restricted to villages in the middle of nowhere. Nor has radical Islam stopped at cities in Iraq and Syria. The entire world is at war with radical Islam, whether President Barack Obama and progressives in the ivory towers of academia and the powerful halls of our federal government are willing to admit it or not. One thing is certain: radical Islam is at war with us.
”
”
Jay Sekulow (Unholy Alliance: The Agenda Iran, Russia, and Jihadists Share for Conquering the World)
“
It must be appreciated that Nazi Germany in 1939 was not the place to be a nonconformist. There was no freedom of speech, much music (including American jazz) was banned, and undesirable people often just disappeared. Marseille simply didn't care. He drank, which was a serious offense, and fast became one o f the most infamous womanizers in the Luftwaffe. He was in trouble so often that, according to one of his friends, "it was a noteworthy occasion when he was not on restriction."...........
......Restricted to his quarters, he didn't take that to include the town, so he borrowed (stole) his commander's car and went barhopping. Coming back drunk with two French girls certainly did not endear him to his new commander, Johannes Steinhoff. One could forgive his utter lack of military bearing and even his rebelliousness up to a point, but no his seeming disregard for his fellow pilots. But in studying the man, I don't think that was truly his attitude. He was a warrior and a loner. The cold fact was that he really didn't need anyone's help in the air and was better alone.
”
”
Dan Hampton (Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, from the Red Baron to the F-16)
“
You want to be a naughty girl?” he whispered. “You came to the right place.”
Rising onto her knees, she turned and sat on his lap, facing the front windshield. Leaning back against his chest, she took his hands and placed them on her breasts before slowly sinking down on him once more, inch by inch. This time, she wasn’t allowed to moan her pleasure, and the restriction only ramped up the powerful ache. She hovered so close to release that it would only take a few upward thrusts of Daniel’s hips to make her come.
His fingertips skimmed over her collarbone and neck. He hesitated for a split second before his big hand covered her mouth, preventing any sound from escaping.
“Is this okay, baby?”
Story caught of glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror, eyes dark and heavy with passion, Daniel’s hand over her lips. The erotic sight made her sex clench tightly around him. Closing her eyes, she nodded vigorously.”
Excerpt From: Bailey, Tessa. “Officer Off Limits.” Entangled Publishing, LLC (Brazen), 2013-05-23T10:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
”
”
Tessa Bailey (Officer off Limits (Line of Duty, #3))
“
Amanollah Khan had tried to assert rights for women in the 1920s, together with his queen Soraya, who famously cast off her veil in public. The royal couple also began promoting the education of girls, banned the selling of them for marriage, and put restrictions on polygyny. The backlash was severe. To many Afghans, and particularly to the majority who did not live in Kabul, the reforms seemed outrageous: Tribal men would lose future income if daughters could no longer be sold or traded as wives. In 1929, under threat of a coup, the king was forced to abdicate.
”
”
Jenny Nordberg (The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan)
“
He stole my car, went into town, and came back drunk, with two girls in varying degrees of undress. They were also drunk, and one was driving my car! I was beyond angry. Well, I had him call a taxi for the girls and made him pay for it. I then restricted him to the base for a month, restricted to his quarters, and after a week of this he was finally allowed to fly again. The only way out of his quarters for the rest of that
”
”
Colin D. Heaton (The German Aces Speak II)
“
Come on.” I sigh. “Let’s go.” My fingers automatically intertwine with his finding solace in his hand. As we walk closer to the light, I see traces of my lipstick coloring his mouth. “You might want to wipe that off.” I say, pointing over to his lips.
“No way. I’m keeping that.” His eyes light up in the way only his dark irises can and dons a playful little smirk. “It’s a souvenir. It says that I kissed the notorious Rebel Heart and lived to tell the tale.”
I roll my eyes, laughing, and give a little shove. “Won’t people be offended?”
“If people manage to be offended by that, then they deserve to feel that way. This shows that I have someone who loves me. It’s not my fault that my girl loves me more than theirs does.” He kisses my temple as we walk hand in hand back to the banquet. “There is nothing wrong with kissing. If people find it wrong that I wear your kisses proudly, then this society is all kinds of fucked up. And I want to change that.
”
”
David R. Torres (Unrestricted Rising (Restricted Saga, #2))
“
They exploited a sector of the labor force whose employment opportunities had been restricted by both cultural norms and discriminatory employer practices. As a result, temp work became women's work.
”
”
Erin Hatton (The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America)
“
I have only ever thought of my demons as constricting—heavy chains that I drag around, trying constantly to wrestle myself free of—their cumbersome weight restricting me in daily movement, stopping me if I try to reach too high or go too far. The thought that I could actually put this personality quirk to good use—to help someone instead of hurt them—has put a glimmer of hope into my heart. A glimmer that I am trying my best to ignore.
”
”
Alessandra Torre (The Girl in 6E (Deanna Madden, #1))
“
In my experience, any class or assembly restricted to girls was going to be in some way degrading, like the one where we'd been convened to receive the information that from now on our bodies would be producing poisons that would need to be discharged on a monthly basis, through an unspecified orifice. The restriction of the typing requirement to girls suggested some sort of connection between our festering genitals and the need to serve in a clerical-type occupation, perhaps as a punishment.
”
”
Barbara Ehrenreich (Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything)
“
Just because I have My Principles Doesn't Means I have been Raised in Restrictions.
”
”
Garima Pradhan (A Girl That Had to be Strong)
“
In London, she'd overheard more than one matron decrying what they considered Esme Byron's inappropriate eccentricities, aghast that she was allowed so much personal freedom and the ability to voice opinions they considered unsuitable for an unmarried young woman barely out of the schoolroom. But her family always stood by her, proud of her artistic talent and uniformly deaf to the complaints of any critics who might say she needed a firmer hand.
'What must Ned and Mama be thinking now?' Were they regretting that they had not listened to those critics? Wishing they'd kept a tighter rein on her activities rather than letting her venture out as she chose?
But she would have gone mad being constrained and confined the way she knew most girls her age were. She could never have been borne the suffocating restrictions, the smothering tedium of being expected to go everywhere with a chaperone in tow, or worse, being cooped up inside doing embroidery or playing the pianoforte.
”
”
Tracy Anne Warren (Happily Bedded Bliss (The Rakes of Cavendish Square, #2))
“
You ever choked? You know what I mean, fumbled at the goal line, stuck your foot in your mouth when you were trying to ask that girl on a date, had a brain freeze on the final exam you were totally prepared for, lipped out a three-foot putt to win the golf tournament, or been paralyzed by the feeling of “Oh my god life can’t get any better, do I really deserve this?” I have. What happens when we get that feeling? We clench up, get short of breath, self-conscious. We have an out-of-body experience where we observe ourselves in the third person, no longer present, now not doing well what we are there to do. We become voyeurs of our moment because we let it become bigger than us, and in doing so, we just became less involved in it and more impressed with it. Why does this happen? It happens because when we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we then create a fictitious ceiling, a restriction, over the expectations we have of our own performance in that moment. We get tense, we focus on the outcome instead of the activity, and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result, or it’s too good to be true. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t, and it’s not our right to believe it does or is. Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss, who are we to think we don’t deserve these fortunes when they are in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven’t earned them? If we stay in process, within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we aren’t thinking of the finish line, we’re not looking at the clock, we’re not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. We are performing in real time, where the approach is the destination, and there is no goal line because we are never finished. When Bo Jackson scored, he ran over the goal line, through the end zone, and up the tunnel . The greatest snipers and marksmen in the world don’t aim at the target, they aim on the other side of it. When we truly latch on to the fact that we are going to die at some point in time, we have more presence in this one. Reach beyond your grasp, have immortal finish lines, and turn your red light green, because a roof is a man-made thing.
”
”
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
“
The second essay was in response to a letter from a student on how to overcome caste and communal distinctions. ‘I do not believe in caste in the modern sense,’ remarked Gandhi. ‘It is an excrescence and a handicap on progress. Nor do I believe in inequalities between human beings... Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil.’
That said, Gandhi continued to believe in varna in sofar as it defined and marked ‘four universal occupations—imparting knowledge, defending the defenceless, carrying on agriculture and commerce and performing service through physical labour. These occupations are common to all mankind, but Hinduism, having recognized them as the law of our being, has made use of it inregulating social relations and conduct.’
This system, believed Gandhi, had been corrupted over the years, resulting in ‘unnecessary and harmful restrictions’ on inter-dining and intermarriage. But as
Gandhi understood it, the ‘law of varna has nothing to do with these restrictions. People of different varnas may intermarry and interdine.... [A] Brahmin who marries a Sudra girl or vice versa commits no offence against the law of varna.’
This was Gandhi’s first statement of support for inter-caste marriages, a considerable advance on his earlier position. However, he wasn’t prepared to go so far as to prescribe marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim. He saw ‘no moral objection to such unions’; yet, in the present atmosphere, he did not believe that ‘these unions can bring peace. They may follow peace. I see nothing but disaster following any attempt to advocate Hindu–Muslim unions so long as the relations between the two remain strained. That such unions may be happy in exceptional
circumstances can be no reason for their general advocacy'.
”
”
Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
“
Sonnet of Short Dress
There is no short dress, only short sight,
No obscene outfit, only eyes of obscenity.
The world is no man's family heirloom,
That it should be cherished by the men only.
Instead of restricting a girl's right to expression,
Teach boys, short dress isn't a sign of consent.
If women cannot walk around freely as men do,
Better sentence all men to lifetime imprisonment.
Let all girls hear it loud, wear what you like to wear,
Walk around naked if that's what you really want.
And when an animal makes unwanted advances,
Activate your knee 'n crush their beloved balls to pulp.
Girls don't need protecting, they ain't fragile showpiece.
Let's just raise boys as decent humans, not entitled bullies.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
“
Because I want you to know… right up until the end… no matter what else you forget”—my voice broke, and it took longer this time before I could continue—“that you are adored and loved and part of a whole. That in a world of cruelty and division, you found love and belonging.” I swiped at the tears and swallowed past my increasingly restricted throat. “No. You didn’t just find love and belonging. You carved it out for yourself. And you carved it out for me. And my siblings.
”
”
Isla Frost (Dragons Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Fangs and Feathers, #1))
“
Here she was, more than a decade later. Not a girl anymore, but a grown woman of sense and education. At this moment, she was literally ripping apart the restrictive teachings society foisted upon women, and showing a well-bred young lady the fine art of fashioning not painted tea trays, but black powder cartridges. Perhaps the world had left a few slashes on her, but she’d made her own small mark on the world.
”
”
Tessa Dare (A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove, #1))
“
Anjali, 19, studies at Gargi College, in Delhi. She and her younger sister were raised disguised as boys but without the freedom. They were always dressed in boys’ pants and shirts even as little girls. There were no frocks or dresses. A barber always cut their hair short. No hair clips or ribbons. No make-up, not even kajal. They were denied all signs of femaleness in clothes, hair, jewellery and they were kept at home as much as possible. Once, when Anjali returned home with nail polish on her nails from a friend’s house, her mother hit her and the nail polish was scraped off. These restrictions continue in college. Anjali feels suffocated and slipped me a note in a college classroom requesting me to intervene.
”
”
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
“
When I asked Dimple what hurts her the most about her father, she said unhesitatingly, ‘He doesn’t trust me. Always restrictions.’ Now Dimple goes out when she wants, but she no longer trusts herself to make any decisions about work or boyfriends. She stays frozen in fear. Restrictions prepare girls to be fearful even when the restrictions are removed and when they are technically free. Bahar nahin jao , don’t go out, is perhaps the most universal restriction. Aarushi, 19, a student at Lady Shri Ram College who fought with her parents for the freedom to go out, says, ‘Now it is very difficult for me to go out. There is always fear. You know people are watching. You have to protect yourself and there is no one with you. You don’t feel relaxed outside; you feel relaxed only when you are at home. I can’t just go freely anywhere, even when my parents don’t say come home early.
”
”
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
“
There are more restrictive rules for girls than for dogs, cats or cows. Everyone knows these common boundaries, ‘boundations’. These restrictions often continue through college and even till the day girls get married. Curfew hours range from 6 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. For Abhisha, 20, studying commerce, the curfew hour is still 6 p.m. or 6.30 p.m. She says wistfully, ‘I have a lot of dreams, like sometimes to hang out with my friends, but my mother and father allow nahin karte , they don’t allow it. Because they think it is not safe for women. I feel they won’t allow me sleepovers, so I never ask, I feel anxious that they might refuse. Hesitation hoti hai , there is hesitation.’ Once she hesitatingly asked her father permission to go somewhere and he did not allow her. She did not talk to her father for a year, but she did not defy him or fight back. She says, ‘Now I have let it go. It was something small. But it affected me a lot.
”
”
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
“
For the first time in a month, she was attired in women’s clothes. They felt strange—not uncomfortable, but as though she could no longer move freely and easily about in the world. She was aware of restrictions, limitations
”
”
Theodora Goss (The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #3))
“
Sending girls to school is good. But the cultural framing around restricting girls is so strong that schools and colleges have become new forms of imprisonment for girls, partly because of cruel parental pressure to perform and partly because schools and colleges don’t teach girls to learn, to question or be curious. Unrelenting pressure to do well in examinations and forget everything else turns girls into dead heads even when they excel in examinations. So living in their heads and going to school are acceptable but having an independent mind is not. Neeru, 21, studying computer science against her wishes, says in despair, ‘Everyone is studying, going to coaching classes every day; it is as if there is nothing else.
”
”
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
“
Fearful women want protection. The protection offered by society comes at a very high price for women, their freedom. The current assumption is that society cannot be made safe for over 600 million girls and women, but women should be made safe for society by keeping them locked up at home as much as possible, by restricting their movement, by regulating their clothes and by isolating them from the world of men as much as possible. Disguised as women’s safety, all approaches that restrict women contribute to their non-existence and are actually about men and men’s control over society, so that men don’t have to bother to learn self-control or respect for women.
”
”
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
“
Supreme Court decision. “On the other hand, the government must restrict the trafficking of minor girls. Dance bars should reopen, but they need strict implementation of laws so that women are not exploited.
”
”
Damyanti Biswas (The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai, #1))
“
In the 2016 film Arrival by director Denis Villeneuve, based on “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is part of a scientific team summoned to Montana to help decipher the language of visiting extraterrestrials, known as “heptapods,” so that their intentions can be clarified. She starts to have frequent visions of a dying girl that she cannot place—she fears she may be going crazy from the strain of her assignment. The audience naturally assumes that these are flashbacks, memories of a child she lost in her past. As Louise begins to realize that her increased understanding of how the aliens communicate is helping liberate her cognitively from linear time, she begins having visions that aid in her work, including reading from the definitive book on the aliens’ written language that she herself is destined to write and publish in her future. From the book’s dedication, she realizes that the girl in her visions is a daughter she is going to have and who will eventually die of a rare disease. And at a key moment, when the world is on the brink of war with the visitors, she is able to contact a Chinese General on his private cell phone and talk him out of his belligerence after she “premembers” his phone number, which he will show her at a celebration months or years in the future—an event celebrating international unification in the aftermath of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial beings, made possible thanks largely to her intervention. It is a story about time loops, in other words. And what “arrives” at the climax and at various turning points—excitingly in some cases and sadly in others—is the meaning of Louise’s baffling experiences. The heptapods, with their circular language, feel at home in the block universe of Minkowski spacetime, where past, present, and future coexist. In Chiang’s short story, the scientists attempting to crack the code of their language get an important clue from Fermat’s principle of least time (Chapter 6), which suggests a kind of teleological interpretation of light’s behavior—it needs to know where it is going right from the start, in order to take the fastest possible route to get there. Chiang resolves the perennial questions about precognition and free will by suggesting that knowledge of future outcomes causes a psychological shift in the experiencer: an “urgency, a sense of obligation”1 to fulfill what has been foreseen. “Fatalism” would be one word for it but inflected more positively—perhaps not unlike how Morgan Robertson and Phil Dick may have seen it: as absolution rather than restriction.
”
”
Eric Wargo (Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious)
“
In the 2016 film Arrival by director Denis Villeneuve, based on “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is part of a scientific team summoned to Montana to help decipher the language of visiting extraterrestrials, known as “heptapods,” so that their intentions can be clarified. She starts to have frequent visions of a dying girl that she cannot place—she fears she may be going crazy from the strain of her assignment. The audience naturally assumes that these are flashbacks, memories of a child she lost in her past. As Louise begins to realize that her increased understanding of how the aliens communicate is helping liberate her cognitively from linear time, she begins having visions that aid in her work, including reading from the definitive book on the aliens’ written language that she herself is destined to write and publish in her future. From the book’s dedication, she realizes that the girl in her visions is a daughter she is going to have and who will eventually die of a rare disease. And at a key moment, when the world is on the brink of war with the visitors, she is able to contact a Chinese General on his private cell phone and talk him out of his belligerence after she “premembers” his phone number, which he will show her at a celebration months or years in the future—an event celebrating international unification in the aftermath of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial beings, made possible thanks largely to her intervention. It is a story about time loops, in other words. And what “arrives” at the climax and at various turning points—excitingly in some cases and sadly in others—is the meaning of Louise’s baffling experiences. The heptapods, with their circular language, feel at home in the block universe of Minkowski spacetime, where past, present, and future coexist. In Chiang’s short story, the scientists attempting to crack the code of their language get an important clue from Fermat’s principle of least time (Chapter 6), which suggests a kind of teleological interpretation of light’s behavior—it needs to know where it is going right from the start, in order to take the fastest possible route to get there. Chiang resolves the perennial questions about precognition and free will by suggesting that knowledge of future outcomes causes a psychological shift in the experiencer: an “urgency, a sense of obligation”1 to fulfill what has been foreseen. “Fatalism” would be one word for it but inflected more positively—perhaps not unlike how Morgan Robertson and Phil Dick may have seen it: as absolution rather than restriction. In the film, one of the heptapods sacrifices its life to save that of Louise and her team members from a bomb planted by some soldiers, even though it clearly knows its fate well in advance. Their race even knows that in 3,000 years, humanity will offer them some needed assistance, and thus their visit is just the beginning of a long relationship of mutual aid in the block universe. At the end of the film, Louise chooses to have her daughter, even knowing that the girl will die.
”
”
Eric Wargo (Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious)
“
Traditionally, education was restricted to Muslim women, so If those housewives had any children to nurture, guess how their futures had been determined? The issue became more complicated when they had set a seal upon their hearings! The illiterate and ear sealed women, only heard what their husbands had injected deep into them, but today their literate and fully veiled girls do not hear well in the classroom, but they clearly hear the under veil wireless voice during the exams.
”
”
Jahanshah Safari
“
But if, for me, this desire that a woman should appear added something more exalting to the charms of nature, they in their turn enlarged what I might have found too restricted in the charms of the woman. It seemed to me that the beauty of the trees was hers also, and that her kisses would reveal to me the spirit of those horizons, of the village of Roussainville, of the books which I was reading that year; and, my imagination drawing strength from contact with my sensuality, my sensuality expanding through all the realms of my imagination, my desire no longer had any bounds. Moreover - just as in moments of musing contemplation of nature, the normal actions of the mind being suspended, and our abstract ideas of things set aside, we believe with the profoundest faith in the originality, in the individual existence of the place in which we may happen to be - the passing figure whom my desire evoked seemed to be not just any specimen of the genus "woman," but a necessary and natural produce of this particular soil. For at that time everything that was not myself, the earth and the creatures upon it, seemed to me more precious, more important, endowed with a more real existence than they appear to full-grown men. And between the earth and its creatures I made no distinction. [...] But to wander thus among the woods of Roussainville without a peasant-girl to embrace was to see those woods and yet know nothing of their secret treasure, their deep-hidden beauty. That girl whom I invariably saw dappled with the shadows of their leaves was to me herself a plant of local growth, merely of a higher species than the rest, and one whose structure would enable me to get closer than through them to the intimate savour of the country. I could believe this all the more readily (and also that the caresses by which she would bring that savour to my senses would themselves be of a special kind, yielding a pleasure which I could never derive from anyone else) since I was still, and must for long remain, in that period of life when one has not yet separated the fact of this sensual pleasure from the various women in whose company one has tasted it, when one has not yet reduced it to a general idea which makes one regard them thenceforward as the interchangeable instruments of a pleasure that is always the same. Indeed, that pleasure does not even exist, isolated, distinct, formulated in the consciousness, as the ultimate aim for which one seeks a woman's company, or as the cause of the preliminary perturbation that one feels. Scarcely does one think of it as a pleasure in store for one; rather does one call it her charm; for one does not think of oneself, but only of escaping from oneself. Obscurely awaited, immanent and concealed, it simply raises to such a paroxysm, at the moment when at last it makes itself felt, those kisses, of the woman by our side, that it seems to us, more than anything else, a sort of transport of gratitude for her kindness of heart and for her touching predilection for us, which we measure by the blessings and the happiness that she showers upon us.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way)
“
The well-known saying of Blessed Augustine: “Love, and do what you will,” really means: “Love God, and do what you will.” This could be a good motto for teenagers and those who are trying to guide them on a Christian path. The love of God is a safeguard, a guarantee of repentance, whatever transgressions we may commit. A child who loves God is safer than a child who is restricted to the point where he rebels against God. A girl asked a Christian adult once how she should dance, and the adult answered, “Dance in a such a way that you enjoy yourself; but enjoy yourself in such a way that when you come home to your room, you can face the icon of the Lord and thank Him—not so that you come home and feel ashamed to look upon His face.
”
”
Sister Magdalen (Children in the Church Today: An Orthodox Perspective)
“
Women and sports a classic conflict in a culture of honor, similar to that of war. The point of athletic events was to have women admiring male competitors from the sidelines, and later presenting the winner with his reward. The more segregated and conservative the society, the harsher the restrictions on women’s sports".
”
”
Jenny Nordberg (The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan)
“
Women and sports are a classic conflict in a culture of honor, similar to that of war. The point of athletic events was to have women admiring male competitors from the sidelines, and later presenting the winner with his reward. The more segregated and conservative the society, the harsher the restrictions on women’s sports. [...] The real reasons for those governments’ reluctance to have women practicing sports are, of course, exactly what Nader has figured out: A woman who feels her own physical strength may be inspired to think she is capable of other things. And when an entire society is built on gender segregation, such ideas could cause problems for those who would like to hold on to wealth and power.
”
”
Jenny Nordberg (The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan)
“
One shall be a light-love book, a girl training to be a veterinarian, fighting against the restrictions of her sex in that field. Her goal will be to overcome those man-made restrictions, assert the efficiency of her sex, and attain the happiness she desires. And the other will be a story of Leyte, and the title is already in my mind, the plot in sketchy form, and the title shall be Her Name Was Leyte. Where do you get your ideas? The next time a would-be author asks that question of me I shall not answer.
”
”
Bryce Beattie (Pulp Era Writing Tips (Classic Fiction Writing Instruction Book 1))