A Left-Handed Woman Quotes

“The transcendence of shame is a prominent theme in the narrative of women's lives. The shame of violation; the shame of appetite; the shame of anger; the shame of being unloved; the shame of otherness; the shame, perhaps above all, of drive. Seventy-five years ago, in the lower-middle-class milieu where I grew up, the career prospects for a girl who couldn't tap dance were depressingly limited. I scoured literature for exceptions, and there were some. But nearly all of them had achieved distinction at a price their male counterparts didn't have to pay. In that respect, one might say they were all left-handed: they defied the message that they weren't right.”
― Judith Thurman, A Left-Handed Woman: Essays

“It wasn't obvious to my generation how or if one could become oneself, an individual, without performing what the psychoanalyst Louise Kaplan memorably called a "female-female impersonation.”
― Judith Thurman, A Left-Handed Woman: Essays

“Arkie took a dim view of patriarchal institutions - religion, capitalism, marriage. She liked to quote one of her professors at a woman's college: "He has to be a very good husband to e better than no husband at all.”
― Judith Thurman, A Left-Handed Woman: Essays