Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin "helping' them. Such a world does not exist - never has.
Gerda LernerWhen I started working on women's history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing.
Gerda LernerThe main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences, and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone.
Gerda LernerBlack people cannot and will not become integrated into American society on any terms but those of self-determination and autonomy.
Gerda Lerner. . . black women . . . are trained from childhood to become workers, and expect to be financially self-supporting for most of their lives. They know they will have to work, whether they are married or single; work to them, unlike to white women, is not a liberating goal, but rather an imposed lifelong necessity.
Gerda Lerner