Skip to content

What women must do, what feminists are now doing is to point to that stage, its sets, its props, its director, and its scriptwriter, as did the child in the fairy tale who discovered that the emperor was naked, and say, the basic inequality between us lies within this framework. And then they must tear it down.

— Gerda Lerner The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

Another quote →

More quotes by Gerda Lerner

We now know that man is not the measure of that which is human, but men and women are.

Women's History is indispensable and essential to the emancipation of women.

The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

There was therefore no inevitability in the emergence of an all male priesthood.

The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

Women had no history—so they were told; so they believed. Thus, ultimately, it was men's hegemony over the symbol system which most decisively disadvantaged women.

The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

Most significant of all the impediments toward developing group consciousness for women was the absence of a tradition which would reaffirm the independence and autonomy of women at any period in the past.

The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

All Gerda Lerner quotes →

Attribution

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