Quotes by Mary Barnett Gilson

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... work is only part of a man's life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.
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...there are persons who seem to have overcome obstacles and by character and perseverance to have risen to the top. But we have no record of the numbers of able persons who fall by the wayside, persons who, with enough encouragement and opportunity, might make great contributions.
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Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women's lives. You never saw men milling around in men's departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests.
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The economic dependence of woman and her apparently indestructible illusion that marriage will release her from loneliness and work and worry are potent factors in immunizing her from common sense in dealing with men at work.
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Until we devise means of discovering workers who are temperamentally irked by monotony it will be well to take for granted that the majority of human beings cannot safely be regimented at work without relief in the form of education and recreation and pleasant surroundings.
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Until the sky is the limit [for women], as it is for men, men as well as women will suffer, because all society is affected when half of it is denied equal opportunity for full development.
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Women cannot claim the right to be considered mature and responsible until they decide the course of their lives for themselves and refuse to be a "manipulated group." They will not be truly emancipated untilthe right to work is a matter of course and not of discussion.
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I believe that all women of working ages and physical capacity, regardless of income, should be expected to earn their livings either in or out of the home. Until this attitude prevails I believe the position of women will be uncertain and undignified, in spite of poetic rhapsodies to the contrary.
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The woman who does her job for society inside the four walls of her home must not be considered by her husband or anyone else an economic "dependent," reaching out her hands in mendicant fashion for financial help.
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To find ways of practicing democracy, not ways of orating about it, is our great problem.
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