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If there is one thing more than another in this whole accursed tissue of false society, which makes me angry, it is the asinine stupidity which with the true phlegm of impenetrable dullness says, 'Why don't the women leave!' Will you tell me where they will go and what they shall do? When the State, the legislators, has given to itself, the politicians, the utter and absolute control of the opportunity to live; when, through this precious monopoly, already the market of labor is so overstocked that workmen and workwomen are cutting each others' throats for the dear privilege of serving their lords; when girls are shipped from Boston to the south and north, shipped in carloads, like cattle, to fill the dives of New Orleans or the lumber-camp hells of my own state...

Voltairine de Cleyre#17

RightsGenderWorkOppression

About this quote

What does it mean?
Critics blame women for staying in oppressive conditions despite the state controlling their options.
In plain terms
It is unfair to blame women for staying when the state controls their options.
What can you take from it?
Oppression limits choices; don't blame victims.

Where it applies

  • feminist discourse

Putting it to work

  • support worker protections

Questions to consider

  • What choices do oppressed people have?

Another view

Personal agency varies even in difficult conditions.

More from Voltairine de Cleyre

  1. From the birth of the Church, out of the womb of Fear and the fatherhood of Ignorance, it has taught the inferiority of woman. In one form or another through t…

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  2. When America passed the fugitive slave law compelling men to catch their fellows more brutally than runaway dogs, Canada, aristocratic, unrepublican Canada, st…

    Permalink to quote #18
  3. He cried out through the letter of Dr. Markland, that a young mother lacerated by unskillful surgery in the birth of her babe, but recovering from a subsequent…

    Permalink to quote #15

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