#oppression

When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention. ↗

— Nicholas D. Kristof

#empathy #women #women-s-rights #oppression

When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression. ↗

— Marjane Satrapi

#fear #oppression #repression #oppression

The abiding western dominology can with religion sanction identify anything dark, profound, or fluid with a revolting chaos, an evil to be mastered, a nothing to be ignored. 'God had made us master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.' From the vantage point of the colonizing episteme, the evil is always disorder rather than unjust order; anarchy rather than control, darkness rather than pallor. To plead otherwise is to write 'carte blanche for chaos.' Yet those who wear the mark of chaos, the skins of darkness, the genders of unspeakable openings -- those Others of Order keep finding voice. But they continue to be muted by the bellowing of the dominant discourse. ↗

— Catherine Keller

#colonialism #feminism #history #nature #oppression

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. ↗

— Frederick Douglass

#oppression

Still, corruption and oppression are far too common threats to the democratic society. ↗

— Anna Lindh

#corruption #democratic #democratic society #far #oppression

We shall all respect the principles of each other and do nothing that would be regarded as an act of oppression to any portion of the people. ↗

— Alexander Mackenzie

#any #each #nothing #oppression #other

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. ↗

— James Madison

#enemy #fighting #foreign #guise #land

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression. ↗

— James Madison

#been #chequered #error #gained #humanity

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. ↗

— Nelson Mandela

#another #beautiful #experience #land #never

Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group specifically because of a threatening characteristic shared by the latter group. ↗

— Robin Morgan

#another #because #characteristic #commits #group