Quote

When the women's movement began, it was a middle-class phenomenon. Certainly, black women had other stuff to think about in the '60s besides a women's movement. Working-class women were slow to get into it.

Gail Collins

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gail Collins
Age: 78
Born: 1945
Born: November 25
Journalist
Cincinnati
Ohio
Black
Phenomenon
Stuff
Slow
Women
Began
Think
Certainly
Thinking
Movement
Middle
Class
Working
Besides

More quotes by Gail Collins

Image
Hillary Clinton almost got to be president. The reasons why she didn't become president had to do with bad judgments about how to handle the early caucus states, which is not a gender-specific trait.
Gail Collins
Image
One very clear memory I have of college is that I never learned anything in the big lectures. I have a feeling I'd have done even worse if they'd been on a laptop screen.
Gail Collins
Image
My only thought about Margaret Thatcher is the same one I had about Ronald Reagan. I hated a lot of what they did, but once in a while a country just needs a change.
Gail Collins
Image
I admired the way McCain worked on campaign finance reform. I admired the way Nancy Pelosi stiffened the Democrats' spine during the health care debate. I admire the way Barack Obama has raised a dog in the White House without ever putting it on the roof of the car for a vacation drive.
Gail Collins
Image
We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.
Gail Collins
Image
Elections have to have at least a little meaning. Obama ran on income tax hikes for the wealthy. People knew they were voting for that. They want that. And it's good policy.
Gail Collins
Image
Take Hispanic voters. They favor Democrats because they like the party's programs, from health care reform to government spending on education. It's not because the Republicans don't have a big enough Office of Hispanic Outreach.
Gail Collins
Image
Any time you write history, you insert your opinion. You pick and choose what you are going to write about. I feel really happy not inserting myself. I spend too much of my life inserting myself. It's just great to let other people carry the narrative.
Gail Collins
Image
Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
Gail Collins
Image
At the beginning of his administration, Obama homed right in on Medicare, which he wanted to fix by reducing the overall cost of health care in this country. He risked everything - some would claim he lost everything - by being so single-minded.
Gail Collins
Image
In college, the guys aren't worrying about whether they'll be able to pursue their career dreams and still have kids.
Gail Collins
Image
You know, I really miss sex scandals. They're generally colorful. They almost never mean anything over the long run. And while they're going on, the people who actually keep the government running are let alone to go about their business. Good old sex scandals.
Gail Collins
Image
Certainly people in empty places feel they have the right to do what they want to their property and don't necessarily see the effect of their pollution or pesticides on others. But Texans have an appreciation for water problems and are very aware of the droughts.
Gail Collins
Image
You know, I have a lot of books on my iPad, but when I try to read them, I find myself wandering off to play games. Those are books I'm interested in. I can't imagine what would have happened to me in college if my biology class had been on the same computer as Words With Friends and Doom.
Gail Collins
Image
It is more a mentality than the actual places people live, as Jefferson and Hamilton would argue about - city versus country. For example, someone could have an empty place mentality yet be living in a condo in Boca Raton.
Gail Collins
Image
Personally, I'd be really glad to have a national conversation about whether to outlaw most forms of birth control. For once, the kids and their grandparents would find themselves on the same side.
Gail Collins
Image
One line I'd draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn't. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they'll get penalized with lower benefits.
Gail Collins
Image
My own dream is that we discover that the NSA has been secretly keeping files on members of the National Rifle Association.
Gail Collins
Image
There have been tons of politicians who were slow to accept equal rights when it meant changes in the established social order. Many eventually came around, admitted they were wrong, and were forgiven. But the ones who actively choose hate-mongering don't ever get a pass.
Gail Collins
Image
DePaulo says that 'singlism' -- a term she coined and for which we are prepared to forgive her -- is not just aimed at unmarried women.
Gail Collins