Women in this country truly amaze. We have accomplished so much in the past 150 years, a time when the organized movement for suffrage began, but, yet, we have a lot yet to accomplish. I consider myself a feminist and am proud to say I am one. What upsets me greatly is how many people are not willing to be called feminist. Perhaps this has to do with the radicals in the movement who give the impression that women are men-haters, when in fact that is far from the case. Feminism is quite frankly concerned with trying to provide equal opportunities for women, in work (equal pay, etc.) and in social realms (child- and health-care), that men have.

You would think that all women want this, and likewise men would, since after all if women are helped men would be as well. But this is not the case. Women are still considered less than equal and still considered the "weaker" sex. To achieve greater things and to finally have equality all women must work together for that. I am not the first to say this, nor wil I be the last. Below is a collection of quotes through history which will show how far we have come and yet to go. The latter will be especially relevant when you look at the year that some of the following quotes were made.

. . . man was created of the dust of the earth, but woman was made of a part of man, after that he was a living soule: yet was shee not produced from Adam's foote, to be his too low inferiour; nor from his head to be his superiour, but from his side, neare his heart, to be his equall . . .
--Rachel Speght, 1617

I would, without a doubt, rather be a simple soldier than be a woman, because to be truthful, a soldier can become king, but a woman can never become free.
--Madeleine de Scudery, 1656-1661

But how can a Man respect his Wife, when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex, when from his own elevation he looks down on them as void of Understanding, full of Ignorance and Passion, so that Folly and a Woman are equivalent Terms with him?
--Mary Astell, 1700

. . . the wise Author of nature has endowed the female mind with equal powers and faculties, and given them the same right of judging and acting for themselves, as he gave to the male sex.
--Hannah Mather Crocker, 1818

. . . intellect is not sexed; . . . strength of mind is not sexed; and . . . our views about the duties of men and the duties of women, the sphere of man and the sphere of woman, are mere arbitrary opinions, differing in different ages and countries, and dependent solely on the will and judgment of erring mortals.
--Sarah M. Grimke, 1837

They talk about a woman's sphere,
As though it had a limit.
There's not a place in earth or heaven,
There's not a task to mankind given . . .
Without a woman in it.
--Kate Field, between 1838-1896

I assert that the first, and fundamental right of every woman is to be allowed to free exercise of her own belief; and that free exercise is not allowed when she is in any way restrained either morally or intellectually.
--Margaret Anna Cusack, between 1849-1899

The widening of woman's sphere is to improve her lot. Let us do it, and if the world scoff, let it scoff -- if it sneer, let it sneer . . .
--Lucy Stone, 1855

The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1863

We did not labor in suffrage just to bring the vote to women but to allow women to express their opinions and become effective in government.
--Jeannette Rankin, between 1880-1973

Men and women are like right and left hands: it doesn't make sense not to use both.
--Jeannette Rankin, between 1880-1973

. . . gentlemen . . . Do you not see that so long as society says a woman is incompetent to be a laywer, minster or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher, that every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges that he has no more brains than a woman?
--Susan B. Anthony, 1881

If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, dese women togedder ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!
--Sojourner Truth, 1881

I have often thought how strange it is that men can at once and the same moment cheerfully consign our sex to lives either of narrowest toil or senseless luxury and vanity, and then sneer at the smallness of our aims, the pettiness of our thoughts, the puerility of our conversation.
--Frances Power Cobbe, 1882

We are tired of pretense that we have special privileges and the reality that we have none; of the fiction that we are queens, and the fact that we are subjects; of the symbolism which exalts our sex but is only a meaningless mockery.
--Lillie Devereux Blake, 1884

When Abraham Lincoln penned the immortal emancipation proclamation he did not stop to inquire whether every man and every woman in Southern slavery did or did not want to be free. Whether women do or do not wish to vote does not affect the question of their right to do so.
--Mary E. Haggart, 1884