"Watching people doubt themselves, in my experience it’s 100% always women. [On one trip] the group naturally split in half. There were some taller folks (all men) in the front, and they were all very fast walkers, very competitive with each other. And in the back it was mostly women, and many of them just happened to be shorter women. One of the women came up to me and said ‘You know, I just don’t know if backpacking is for me. Look how slow I am.’ And I said ‘You’re not slow at all. You’re walking a pace that’s correct for you. You’re doing what your body wants to do. Not thinking about your pace, are you enjoying being out here? Do you like the feeling of your body moving in this space? Don’t compare yourself to the other half of the group up there that’s taller, faster, more competitive. What are you experiencing right now?'" — Charlotte Austin or Shawnté Salabert She Explores, Episode 56, "An (Adventure) Book Club For The 21st Century"
"Women are invited to join the party at base and advanced base to assist in the cooking chores. Special rates are available. They will not be permitted to climb, however. … Women are not strong enough to carry heavy loads. And the high altitude—women aren’t emotionally stable enough to handle it." — Unknown Told to Arlene Blum when she asked to join a Denali expedition
"Everyone is charmed by a little tomboy, a scrappy little girl in overalls with a ponytail and scraped knees, who loves soccer and baseball and comic books and dirt. But what are we charmed by? It’s not just that she’s cute—it’s that she innocently thinks she’s going to stay this way forever. But we all know she won’t, and why is that? Because as much as we like a tomboy, nobody likes a tomman." — Jessi Klein You’ll Grow Out of It
"I was sick of dating funny but emotionally-stunted guys. I wanted to find a Grown Man. It seemed only fair, I decided, that if that was what I wanted then I should make some attempt to become a Grown Woman. But when I looked at what it would mean to become a woman, one of those standard grown-up ladies, like the ones from commercials for gum or soda or shampoo, it all seemed to involve shrinking, rather than growing." — Jessi Klein You’ll Grow Out of It
"We have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals." — Audre Lorde "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference"
"Separation is not always segregation." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
