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Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.

— Freda Adler Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

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More quotes by Freda Adler

Woman throughout the ages has been mistress to the law, as man has been its master.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

The Rubicons which women must cross, the sex barriers which they must breach, are ultimately those that exist in their own minds.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

Perhaps it is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused and, in reality, it is she who must prove her good reputation, her mental soundness, and her impeccable propriety.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

That man is a creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his conformity and define his deviancy.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Freda Adler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.