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Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.

Agnes Smedley

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Agnes Smedley
Age: 58 †
Born: 1892
Born: February 23
Died: 1950
Died: May 6
Feminist
Journalist
Writer
Osgood
Missouri
Boys
Fights
Fighting
Ashamed
Girl
Shot
Part
Shots
Body
Lack
Men
Tried
Took
Rode
Strength
Jumped

More quotes by Agnes Smedley

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I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
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I have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman. Friendship is far more human.
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No one yet knows what a man's province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial.
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But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be.
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To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
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So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital. There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.
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And the woman who could win the respect of man was often the woman who could knock him down with her bare fists and sit on him until he yelled for help.
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I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.
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Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.
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Professors could silence me then they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.... I was learning that books and diagrams can be evil things if they deaden the mind of man and make him blind or cynical before subjection of any kind.
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When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
Agnes Smedley
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But settled things were enemies to me and soon lost their newness and color. The unknown called.
Agnes Smedley
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My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike. She said little, especially when my father or the men who worked for him were about I remember her instinctive and unhesitating sympathy for the miners.
Agnes Smedley
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There are many men - such as those often to be found among the Indians - who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.
Agnes Smedley
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Thousands of women are crushed and made inarticulate by that system and never develop as their natures would force them to develop were they in a decent environment.
Agnes Smedley
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Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
Agnes Smedley
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I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
Agnes Smedley
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There's something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
Agnes Smedley
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In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.
Agnes Smedley
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Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
Agnes Smedley