Faye Wattleton

“My satisfaction comes from my commitment to advancing a better world.”

“The deal is that women have entered the workforce, but they have not been relieved of the domestic responsibilities.”

“'What can your kids teach you?' Well, I believe something different about kids. We don't own them, they have their own knowledge. From the start you have to make the choice to listen.”

“My mother was from Mississippi, or is from 'Mississippi;' my father was from Alabama. He speaks about conditions in Mississippi and Alabama. They were really the poster children for the bad public laws that segregated, according to race, in our country.”

“Affirmative action has been generally cast in terms of race. I think women themselves are not as cognizant of the role affirmative action has played in opening the doors for women.”

“This is not a country that has had a tremendous sympathy for poor people, so I think that the notion that somehow we have slipped into an era in which poor people don't matter is not quite the way our history would define it.”

“I have never believed in the impossible.”

“The recognition of rights for women and minorities became a large part of my understanding of what this country is all about.”

“A woman who places a high priority on performance and excellence is seen as imperial. A man is seen as demanding and tough.”

“Many African-American men are incarcerated. And so African-American women do carry an enormous burden. And traditionally have carried a greater burden than perhaps their white counterparts.”

“We have a very long way to go to really penetrate the power structure. Until that happens, you will not see stability among the workforce, among women - in the workforce among women.”

“In 1985, I saw a tape of myself where my eyes were puffy. I looked very tired and bedraggled and not as youthful as I would like to have been.”

“Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can’t take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can’t take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right.”

“Being a person who has had plastic surgery and goes to the gym five days a week to work my muscles up so they don't look atrophied as a 60-year-old, I don't disparage people who want to maintain their appearance. But what I don't want is a society that tells me I have to.”

“My mother taught me a lot of things, but they had big presuppositions built in - like her expectation that I'd be a missionary nurse in a religious order.”

“The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.”

“One of the sad commentaries on the way women are viewed in our society is that we have to fit one category. I have never felt that I had to be in one category.”

“The influence of one's parents is powerful and permanent.”

“I do not make any apologies for my manner or personality. I come from a long line of very strong, black African-American women who neither bend nor bow. I haven't had very good modeling in submission.”

“I was raised in a very sheltered, narrow environment.”