Equality Now is honored to count Margaret Atwood as part of our family and grateful for her support and tenacity. Her commitment to justice for women and girls inspires us everyday. She is a lifelong activist and her persistence is unwavering.
1. “A word after a word after a word is power.”
2. “Men often ask me, ‘Why are your female characters so paranoid? It’s not paranoia. It’s recognition of their situation.’”
3. “‘Why do men feel threatened by women?’ I asked a male friend of mine … ‘They’re afraid women will laugh at them,’ he said. ‘Undercut their world view.’ … Then I asked some women students in a poetry seminar I was giving, ‘Why do women feel threatened by men?’ ‘They’re afraid of being killed,’ they said.”
4. “A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as much as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.”
5. “I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’ – the human race – and that we are all members of it.”
6. “We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.”
7. “Women will suffer most from the devastation of climate change, as lawlessness triggered by disasters and food shortages make them vulnerable to rape and other violence.”
8. “I don’t even call it climate change, I call it “the everything change.” It’s a change of everything. We think climate and we think, more clouds, more rain, oh, who cares. The everything change can never be the front and center of a book because it’s not a human being.”
9. “In time all girls will be able to grow up believing that there are no avenues closed to them simply because they are girls.”
10. “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” (Don’t let the bastards grind you down).
Need more Margaret in your day? Watch Margaret Atwood’s speech at our 2018 Make Equality Reality Gala.