Words matter. These are the best Karen DeCrow Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Fifty-nine cents. For years, I wore a button – ’59 cents.’ Many of my colleagues wore it also. The purpose was so that people would come up and ask, ‘What does ’59 cents’ mean?’ One could then launch into a discussion about how women working full time in the U.S. earn 59 cents for every dollar earned by men.
When I was in school, there was no such thing as girls’ athletics.
I was running for mayor of Syracuse – the first woman to run for mayor in our city, or in New York, and one of the first in the United States. I was known for my strong conservation plank. In 1969, the term ‘conservation’ was hardly on the tip of every citizen’s tongue.
If a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support… autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.
Despite the strength of the feminist movement in the 1970s and beyond, a fable has persisted that educated women are rejected as marriage partners.
Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.
In chamber music, the audience can hear each instrument and understand (and feel) what the composer and the musicians have in mind as they play.
In my opinion, right up there with free public schools, our free public library system is what makes citizenship possible, even what makes America great.
In the battle between the sexes, men and women will go practically to the end of the earth in illogical, irrational ways to give each other pain.
After ‘Roe v. Wade’ – when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 – I thought the national conversation about abortion and birth control would be over. It was not.
Father’s Day each year makes me grateful for what my father did for me. This has little to do with our relationship, and much to do with what he taught me.
Opponents of legal birth control, including abortion, have tried for decades to play the race card, saying that legal abortion is racist. What they ignore is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood in 1966.
George McGovern – and I campaigned very hard for his election – was not, in the summer of 1971, a strong feminist ally. But he did come around.
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that minority set-aside programs in municipal contracts were unconstitutional. The court wondered if there were proof that people of color even want to receive municipal contracts.
When ‘Carmen’ premiered in 1875, it was panned by the critics. It survived 45 performances. It was called a musical and moral outrage. After Bizet died, at age 37, ‘Carmen’ became wildly popular. If you believe in your creation, and the rest of the world is laughing or yelling ‘Boo,’ don’t give up.
I joined NOW on an issue of pay.
The irony is that the more we fight age, the more it shows. Paint on a 50-year-old face brings to mind a Gilbert and Sullivan comic figure. Smooth the cheeks, and suddenly the ear lobes and hands look out of place. Do we run around in October, painting the gold leaves green?
The Metropolitan Opera, of course, is the gold standard in opera. The Met experience includes the huge stage, the vast audience, the elaborate sets. Anyone who saw ‘Faust’ there – I did – knows exactly what hell is like, complete with fire, smoke and terror.
Daddy was hilarious. He could take the most mundane event and tell it so that we all on the floor laughing. He trained me in the joys of humor.
At 20 and 30, we are like travelers in a foreign country, reading the guide book to learn how to behave, to learn when the post office is open. Trivia looms important; critical issues fade into a pastel background, unrecognized.
Is it a recent occurrence that women have tried to control when and if they reproduced? Absolutely not. By 2000 B.C., there was worldwide use of herbal potions to prevent pregnancy. Condoms were made from animal bladders.
Most experiences are either sensual or intellectual. Chamber music, played by a small group so the listener can follow what each player is doing, is both.
We should cease thinking about men as the enemy of children and women.
Opera is the most complete art form. It includes drama, acting, technology (lighting), art (the sets), dance, and the epitome of the human voices. But mostly, go for the glorious music. The arts are crucial to the life of every community.
Patricia Nixon gave up a career to become a political wife. She rose to the pinnacle of glory and then fell to disgrace because of deeds over which she had neither control nor knowledge.
Asked to give advice to a 13-year-old girl about how to lead her life, I say find something you love to do. The goal shouldn’t be accumulating money. It might be making changes in the world, or in your country.
As I grow older, I become more and more of a Marxist – Groucho, that is. When you have lived two-thirds of your life, you know the value of a good joke.
In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start.
One year, I was a patron of a new opera. It was, to put it kindly, unpleasant to the ear. The friends I went with hated it. Keeping quiet about my contribution, I was outed when one of them, reading the program at the restaurant during dinner, saw my name.
Betty Ford and I were colleagues for years, working together for women’s rights in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the country.
In my opinion, the battles over birth control and Planned Parenthood are primarily neither political nor religious. This is an issue of equality for women. This is an issue of women’s rights: Planned Parenthood is the most important private provider of reproductive health care for women in the United States.
If supporters of equality for women want to vote for the best candidate, they must look to a person regardless of gender and must disregard the gender of political opponents.
Most of the well-known American feminists of the 19th century did not come out against the institution of marriage.
