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  Quotes by French, Marilyn




Marilyn French (1929-) American author, known for her feminist novels. In her work, French has underlined that women's suppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture. French's 1985 "history" of patriarchy, Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals, is an impeccably documented examination of the effect of patriarchy on the world; French defines patriarchy as a system of values that holds power and control most important, and rejects life and pleasure as equally -- or MORE -- valuable..

"I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes, she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes."

French, Marilyn on feminism    Share

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"Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can't even think straight."

French, Marilyn on love
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"Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but magnified the bad things, so they came to feel as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage. And something happened sexually in marriage --the swearing to forsake all others, despite its slight observance, had a profound effect. Some people felt trapped by it, impelled to assert what they called freedom. Some accepted it like a rein, and in the effort to avoid pain in the form of hopeless desire, cut off occasions of desire, avoided having long talks at parties with attractive members of the opposite sex. In time, all feeling for the opposite sex was cut off, and intercourse limited to the barest politesses. But something happened to you when you did that, a kind of death seeped up from the genitals to the rest of the body, till it showed in the eyes, the gestures, in a certain lifelessness."

French, Marilyn on marriage    Share

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"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes."

French, Marilyn on women    Share

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"To nourish and raise children against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons."

French, Marilyn on parents and parenting
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"One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear."

French, Marilyn on art    Share

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"Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you're trying to escape?"

French, Marilyn on stereotypes    Share

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