inequality

I could go into their reality any time I chose to, but they could never come into mine. This is what I called 'helping' them.

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well.

You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below. Nobody should have to clean up anybody else__ mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service.

From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practice.

The problem is that rich are getting richer by not giving and poor and getting poorer by not receiving.

It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

For women as a class, the ability to transform sexual practice, to achieve respect from men as equal human beings and thus break out of their subordinate status, is undermined by the ability of men to escape from the responsibility of acknowledging women's equality. Men's use of women in prostitution stands directly in the way of women's efforts to improve their status.

You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his.

When we combine very real workplace inequalities with these romantic opt-out stories, the idea that "having it all" is a laughable goal becomes enshrined as immutable truth. And when we portray opting out as a simple matter of "choice," we ignore the systematic problems that make combining work and motherhood so difficult.

My girlfriends and I talk a lot about feminism and the inequality between the way men and women are talked about, the kind of things we say are, __hy is it mischievous, fun and sexy if a guy has a string of lovers that he__ cast aside; loved and left? Yet if a woman dates three or four people in an eight-year period she is a serial dater and it gives some 12-year-old the idea to call her a __lut_ on the internet?_ It__ not the same for boys, it just isn__ and that__ a fact.

Six men control almost all the media in the United States--book publishing, magazines, television, movie studios, newspapers, and radio. They are not friendly toward feminism, which has almost disappeared from the surface of our society. You will almost never see a feminist column on an op-ed page, a feminist article in a magazine, or newspaper, actual (not satirized) feminist ideas on television or in the movies. Only magazines & radio controlled by feminists--and these are few and not well-funded--offer information on the feminist perspective.This might be understandable if feminism were a wild-eyed manic philosophy. But it is a belief, a politics, based on one simple fact: women are human beings who matter as much as men. That is all that feminism claims. As human beings, women have the right to control their own bodies, to walk freely in the world, to train their minds and bodies, and to love and hate at will. Only those who wish to continue to coerce women into a servant/slave class for men cannot accept this principle.

Sexism is not confined by border, race, class, sexuality or gender and, to my mind (and Margo Kingston's in Chapter 6), it is inextricably bound up with a mindset of entitlement that also afflicts our relationship with the planet.

MAGISTRATEDon't men grow old?LYSISTRATANot like women. When a man comes homeThough he's grey as grief he can always get a girl.There's no second spring for a woman. None.She can't recall it, nobody wants her, howeverShe squanders her time on the promise of oracles,It's no use...

our society is unequal, and bodily difference is used to justify that inequality.

It is our entire culture, the way it runs on money, rewards inhumanity, encourages disconnection and isolation, causes great inequality and suffering, that's the enemy. That is the only enemy worth fighting.

When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?

Morals do exist outside of organized religion, and the __orality_ taught by many of these archaic systems is often outdated, sexist, racist, and teaches intolerance and inequality. When a parent forces a child into a religion, the parent is effectively handicapping his or her own offspring by limiting the abilities of the child to question the world around him or her and make informed decisions. Children raised under these conditions will mature believing that their religion is the only correct one, and, in the case of Christianity, they will believe that all who doubt their religion__ validity will suffer eternal damnation. This environment is one that often breeds hate, ignorance, and __ustified_ violence.

It occurred to me that as a man I could do anything, everything I wanted.