The Female Persuasion

Self-preservation is as important as generosity. (I talk about this a little in my book.) Because if you don’t preserve yourself, keep enough for yourself, then of course you have nothing to give.

“It’s like we kept trying to use the same rules,” Greer said, “and these people kept saying to us, ‘Don’t you get it? I will not live by your rules.’” She took a breath. “They always get to set the terms. I mean, they just come in and set them. They don’t ask, they just do it. It’s still true. I don’t want to keep repeating this forever. I don’t want to keep having to live in the buildings they make. And in the circles they draw. I know I’m being overly descriptive, but you get my point.”

Women, who could be so easy with each other. Women, who were physical and loved each other, even when they were not lovers and never would be.

Good girls could go far, but they could rarely go the distance. They could rarely be great.

Faith found herself slapping off men; they didn’t really bother her so much as lightly disgust her. Because how could men who behaved like this think that women would ever like them? How could men like this even hold their heads up? Yet they did.

She was touched that they were discussing something that no doubt he would rather die than discuss with another person. Which meant that she wasn’t another person, really; that they were tangled together and indivisible.

“Whenever I give a talk at colleges I meet young women who say, ‘I’m not a feminist, but . . .’ By which they mean, ‘I don’t call myself a feminist, but I want equal pay, and I want to have equal relationships with men, and of course I want to have an equal right to sexual pleasure. I want to have a fair and good life. I don’t want to be held back because I’m a woman.’”

Zee told her she should report him. “The administration should know about this. It’s assault, you know.”

“I was drinking,” Greer said. “There’s that.”

“So? All the more reason that he shouldn’t be messing with you.”

Novels had accompanied her throughout her childhood, that period of protracted isolation, and they would probably do so during whatever lay ahead in adulthood.

She’d always been a tireless student and a constant reader, but she found it impossible to speak in the wild and free ways that other people did.