Patricia Ireland Men Quotations

We always knew when we took on the issue of violence against women that somehow our opposition would come after us.

Most of us see Justice O'Connor as something of an icon, although we do not agree with all of her decisions.

The way to be a man if you're a little boy is to be willing to throw your weight around.

When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law.

Some of those men in power, we just have to change their faces because we're not going to change their minds.

And of course we are familiar with the English common law rule of thumb that said a man could in fact use a stick no bigger than his thumb to discipline his wife and family.

I want to reach young women and to get them involved in the mission of the YWCA, economic empowerment of women and girls, and ending racism.

When I hear traditional family values raised, I hear that effort once again to re-establish the man as head and master of his family. Who had the, not only the right, but the obligation to discipline his wife and children to keep them in line?

When they say men should take responsibility, they really mean men should take control ... that men should be heads and masters of their families, and women should take a back seat. That is a very bad message as far as I am concerned.

We may be in a tough time right now, but when we are in a tough time is when our movement gets really strong.

We do not intend to encourage higher courts to consider and possibly create legal precedent that would injure everyday women in the workplace, based on the allegations and evidence of a politically charged case,

I've talked to law enforcement officials at the state and local level who say that violence against women is going up. In any case, we think that it's an important issue whether it's going up or not. And we are determined to stop it.