Anna Quindlen: It’s important to remember that feminism is no longer a group of organizations or leaders. It’s the expectations that parents have for their daughters, and their sons, too. It’s the way we talk about and treat one another. It’s who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes the dinner. It’s a state of mind. It’s the way we live now.

Margaret Atwood: Does “feminist” mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it's the latter, so I sign up.

Lya Sorano: When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years. I don't know about you, but I can't wait that long.

Barbara Strickland: What I am proud of, what seems so simply clear, is that feminism is a way to fight for justice, always in short supply.

Betty Friedan: If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based.

Speech, New York City, January 20, 1974

Betty Friedan: It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

The Feminine Mystique, 1963

Elaine Heffner: Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women's opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.

Erma Bombeck: We've got a generation now who were born with semi-equality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, “this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attaché cases and our three-piece suits.” I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.

Kate Millett: It is interesting that many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning.

Carrie Chapman Catt: This world taught woman nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public, and said the sex had no orators.

Elizabeth Blackwell: If ... society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled.

Clare Boothe Luce: Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, She doesn't have what it takes. They will say, Women don't have what it takes.

Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Susan B. Anthony: Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.