Myth, legend, and ritual ... function to maintain a status quo. That makes them singularly bad in coping with change, indeed counterproductive, for change is the enemy of myth.

Mistrust must be acted on, and effective action by the ruled is not solitary and singular, but joint and repeated.

We are in a double bind. We are expected to feel inferior not only as women, but because we are old.

The idea of power as a possession, whose asset can be banked and drawn on when needed, comes easy to a society whose rules grow out of the methods of finance capitalism.

Man's world' and 'woman's place' have confronted each other since Scylla first faced Charybdis. ... if women have only a place, clearly the rest of the world must belong to someone else and, therefore, in default of God, to men.

If one is going to change things, one has to make a fuss and catch the eye of the world.

This is the power of the powerful to define, to structure, to say, 'This is the way the world works.' It's enormous power. Among the powers of the weak, I think the first one is the power not to believe the powerful.