As much as I wish it wouldn't, Monday keeps creeping up on me every week. Duh, Simran. It's Monday, it happens. To help some of us get over that crappy Monday slump, here are some badass quotes from badass and powerful women for #MotivationMonday! These women are from a generation that didn't afford women the same rights as men, and it was unfortunate to be a woman. Today, women can do absolutely anything (except getting paid the same amount as men), so here's some kickass female liberation coming your way.
"We have become the men we wanted to marry." -- Gloria Steinem
Steinem was one of the leaders of the feminist movement starting in the late 1960s and was the voice of women all over the USA. During a time when women were giving up their educations and careers to support and marry the men in their lives, her liberating notions, articles and speeches were a motivational support system for unhappy women everywhere. Currently, women are more educated than ever before, and have proven that they are capable of everything men are and claimed women weren't. And yet, women get paid less than men.
"You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun." -- Josephine Baker
Baker was an American-born French dancer and singer who refused to perform for a segregated United States. She helped desegregate numerous audiences and helped Americans take after France in accepting all races equally. Aside from her entertainment career, her work was intermittent to World War II and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. She reminds us to work hard, to educate ourselves with words and not violent actions.
"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch and you've got to go out and kick ass." -- Maya Angelou
Angelou was an American writer, poet and civil rights activist. Her autobiographies detail her experiences as an African-American woman in the segregated USA, and attempt successfully to guard black culture. She reminds us to kick Monday's ass, and do the same every single day.
"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." -- Jane Goodall
Goodall is a British scientist who spent her life researching chimpanzees and animal welfare and conservation. She remains, to this day, the only human researcher to ever be accepted into a chimpanzee society (cool, right?). She applied her own methods to her studies since she never went to university, and changed the way animal research was performed. You can take her life's work as a push towards being courageous and being different. Even if your Monday doesn't go amazingly, remember that you still had an impact.
"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us." -- Wilma Rudolph
Rudolph was an American track and field sprinter who was considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s. She was one of the first ever American women to win three gold medals during a single summer Olympics. Let her remind you that you can achieve anything as long as you work hard to reach your potential.
Now go out there and kick Monday's ass, ladies!
