"As our Funhog brother Yvon wrote in 2012 in The Responsible Company, 'Most fundamental changes start at the margins and move toward the center.' The question is whether the change reaches the center and affects the whole or gets lost in platitudes and inaction along the way." — Dick Dorworth Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968, "Viva los Funhogs"
"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
"In her home, she struggles to find the right words to recognize her husband’s efforts. 'I don’t mean to say that I’m not grateful for you,' she tells him, 'but I really hate that I’m expected by society to be super-grateful for the fact that you’re not totally worthless around the house.'" — Lenny Letter
"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
"My interpretation of the treatment we all recieved is that when a woman is inexperienced, young, and eager, male professionals are pleased to help her learn basic skills and knowledge, almost as if she were a little sister or a protégé. But once she demonstrates her competence and determination to succeed in an all-male domain, she meets resistance and even jealousy. Only after a woman has incontestably proven herself in any number of ways… is she “accepted” into the professional clique or organization." — Anne LaBastille Women and Wilderness
"A woman has to be twice as good to be considered half as good." — Unknown
"No wonder studies show that women's intellectual self-esteem tends to go down as years of education go up. We have been studying our own absence." — Gloria Steinem My Life on the Road
"If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over, it becomes normal. If only boys are made class monitor, then at some point we will all think, even if unconsciously, that the class monitor has to be a boy. If we keep seeing only men as heads of corporations, it starts to seem 'natural' that only men should be heads of corporations." — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists
"On the bike, I’d have either a good day or bad day. Typically the good days would be when I had some sort of tailwind; then the next day, I’d have this horrible headwind. I thought a lot about how that’s a good metaphor for life for women that generally have this kind of headwind that they have to work against; as a white male, I probably have that tailwind kind of pushing me through life a little bit. It’s not fair to expect a woman to achieve the same things, yet give her a headwind entire time—and it could be a little headwind or a massive hurricane." — Rob Lea via Shawnte Salabert Adventure Journal, "Rob Lea Swam the English Channel, Climbed Everest, Biked the US—In Six Months"
"Climbing is not inherently racist, however, conventional climbing from the beginning—like big wall climbing at Yosemite and stuff like that—it was born during a system of racism, so, therefore, it’s impacted by it, right? Black people were banned from national parks up until I think it was like the mid-fifties or something like that. That’s already a barrier that’s already been set and that has already impacted who is allowed to control the narrative within this certain sport, and who continues on with it. So, it’s like, no wonder black people haven’t really been getting into it—because we weren’t even allowed to get into it in the first place. … And frankly, when a lot of these big wall accomplishments were going on, black folks were trying to get the right to vote. They weren’t worried about hammering in pitons into cracks and stuff like that—they were trying to just have basic rights. So, who gets to control that narrative from the beginning really has an impact on how things are carried out today. You see it in tech, you see it in climbing—politics. It’s everywhere. ...Because the entire time I’m watching Valley Uprising and I’m like 'Oh, this is cool. This is neat—but, come on, man. Without your heightened status within this country, it wouldn’t have been a possibility whatsoever. You know, you had the opportunity to do this because of your legal status within the country at the time.'" — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"In the US, overt racism is pretty obvious to most people. So, it’s pretty easy to stand up for and defend others—right? But covert racism is just that—it’s covert, concealed, stealthy. Hidden within the fabric of our society and even hidden within the fabric of ourselves. And then, we rationalize it." — Kathy Karlo For the Love of Climbing, Episode 18, "Life Through a Sieve"
"And in a lot of areas, if you’re wanting to get into climbing, you have to go outside of your neighborhood—which can already have its own sort of loaded historical trauma, depending on the neighborhood and stuff like that. You’re going into a space where, primarily, it’s a lot of white people handling ropes. Emily Taylor has always highlighted this: there’s a lot of loaded historical trauma with that imagery." — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"I don’t hate white people; I hate the system of white supremacy that gives them asymmetrical power and unmerited privilege. I don’t hate cops; I hate the pattern of police brutality that systematically harasses and kills black people and other people of color with impunity. I don’t hate soldiers; I hate the horror of war that terrorizes the most politically and economically vulnerable among us. I don’t hate rich people; I hate the system of capitalism that creates an elite one percent at the expense of the rest of us. It is precisely because of my love for humanity that I get enraged at systems that prevent people from flourishing and being free. It’s frustrating to see my righteous anger at unjust systems interpreted as hatred for individuals, but it’s more frustrating to see the oppressed suffer while those maladjusted to injustice remain silent. I won’t be silent. Silence is violence." — Nyle Fort
"And, that’s called privilege. Knowing that a life of security, minivans, buying homes, and retirement is firmly within your grasp is privilege. Golf as a backup plan is privilege. What we think of as adventure, in the conventional sense, is privilege. People like myself who are born into privilege sleep under the stars because they don’t know what it’s like to be homeless and climb mountains because they don’t know what it’s like to be scared some caprice of nature—like a bullet with your name on it from an officer’s gun—might take your life. Adventure, in short, is wanting to experience something you’ve never experienced before. The particular kind of adventure someone seeks out is an easy way to know what experiences they have and haven’t had." — Chris Kalman Email Newsletter
"I know this must feel so strange, but ordinary is just what you’re used to. This may not be ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. This will become ordinary. (Aunt Lydia)" — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some." — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"I suppose all children think that, about any history before their own. If it’s only a story, it becomes less frightening." — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists. If we don’t, then we are blamed for our own assaults, our own deaths." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
