Alice Paul (1885-1977) was an American suffragist, women’s rights activist, and political strategist. She was born in Moorestown, New Jersey, and grew up in a Quaker family that valued education and social justice.
Paul received her education in the United States and England, earning degrees from Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1912, Paul joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and quickly became one of its most effective organizers. She used tactics such as parades, picketing, and hunger strikes to draw attention to the suffrage cause.
In 1917, Paul co-founded the National Woman’s Party (NWP) with Lucy Burns, which focused on securing a federal amendment to grant women the right to vote. The NWP picketed the White House, organized marches and rallies, and even staged a three-day demonstration outside the Capitol building.
Paul’s tactics were controversial, and she and other suffragists were frequently arrested and imprisoned. While in prison, Paul organized hunger strikes and endured force-feedings to draw attention to the cause. Her efforts paid off when the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.
After the passage of the 19th Amendment, Paul turned her attention to other issues affecting women, including the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She authored the first version of the ERA in 1923 and continued to fight for its passage until her death.
Paul’s legacy as a suffragist and advocate for women’s rights is significant. She was a trailblazer who used creative and innovative tactics to advance the cause of women’s suffrage and set a precedent for future social justice movements.
Alice Paul Quotes About Women Empowerment
1. “To me, there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”
2. “There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it.”
3. “I have joined the ‘suffragettes’ – the militant party on the woman suffrage question.”
4. “Mr. President, how long must women wait to get their liberty? Let us have the rights we deserve.”
5. “I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated.”
6. “We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.”
7. “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.”
8. “I thought I got a very thorough idea of the poverty situation in a big city.”
9. “It was a feeling of loyalty to our own sex and an enthusiasm to have every degradation that was put upon our sex removed.”
10. “All the girls planned to start in and support themselves—and you know it wasn’t so general then for girls to support themselves.”
11. “There is danger that because of a great victory women will believe their whole struggle for independence ended. They have still far to go.”
12. “The Woman’s Party is made up of women of all races, creeds, and nationalities who are united on the one program of working to raise the status of women.”
13. “This world crisis came about without women having anything to do with it. If the women of the world had not been excluded from world affairs, things today might have been different.”
14. “Nobody ever dreamt that women—you were always seeing these Elks and people going around in processions—but they never thought of women doing such a thing. And so there really was a great interest in it.”
15. “I think that American women are further along than any other women in the world. But you can’t have peace in a world in which some women or some men or some nations are at different stages of development.”
16. “I think if we get freedom for women, then they are probably going to do a lot of things that I wish they wouldn’t do. But it seems to me that isn’t our business to say what they should do with it. It is our business to see that they get it.”
17. “I never heard of anybody advocating anything either radical or not radical, it was so purely scholarly.”
18. “Mr. President how long must women wait to get their liberty? Let us have the rights we deserve.”
19. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
20.“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”
21. “Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically.”
22. “Food simply isn’t important to me.”
23.“My first Paul ancestor was imprisoned in England as a Quaker and came to this country for that reason, I mean not to escape prison but because he was such a strong opponent of the government in every possible way.”
24. “The Woman’s Party is made up of women of all races, creeds and nationalities who are united on the one program of working to raise the status of women.”
25. “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.”
26. “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”
27. “I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”
28. “I never heard of anybody advocating anything either radical or not radical, it was so purely scholarly.”
29. “I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic.”
30. “The work of the National Woman’s Party is to take sex out of law-to give women the equality in law they have won at the polls.”
31. “I think if we get freedom for women, then they are probably going to do a lot of things that I wish they wouldn’t do; but it seems to me that isn’t our business to say what they should do with it. It is our business to see that they get it.”
32. “There is danger that because of a great victory women will believe their whole struggle for independence ended. They have still far to go. It is for the Woman’s Party to decide whether there is any way in which it can serve in the struggle which lies ahead to remove the remaining forms of woman’s subordination.”
33. “It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for full equality won. It has just begun. There is hardly a field, economic or political, in which the natural and unaccustomed policy is not to ignore women….Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically.”
34. “A group of feminists, some with life partners, some not… who gather to address mother’s rights and other issues important to us.”
35. “It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned, I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society.”
Alice Paul Quotes About Gender Equality
36. “I had learned enough to know that I didn’t know anything about this field, the political and economic field which, if I had known it existed in the beginning, I think I would have majored in always because that just was what I really was interested in.”
37. “It may be an instinct, it is with me anyway, when you’re presenting something to the world, to make it as beautiful as you can.”
38. “I know my father believed and my mother believed in and supported the suffrage movement, and I remember my mother taking me to suffrage meetings held in the home of a Quaker family that lived not far from us.”
39. “It occurred to me that I just didn’t see how I could go ahead and continue to eat meat. It just seemed so… cannibalistic to me. And so, I’m a vegetarian, and I have been ever since.”
40. “It has become impossible to forget ‘votes for women’, just as it was impossible to forget the reformation of Luther.”
41. “When you’re young, when you’ve never done anything very much on your own, you imagine that it won’t be so hard.”
42. “I will settle down and teach for the rest of my days.”
43. “It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society.”
44. “Isn’t memory a strange thing?”
45. “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”
46. “I will settle down & teach for the rest of my days.”
47. “I read just endlessly, ceaselessly, almost every book, it seems!”
48. “Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”
49. “I don’t think there would be much use in my doing this because whether I studied or not I will always read.”
50. “I wanted to learn what life was like, as many aspects as I could.”
51. “The building up of a new, far-reaching system of inspection on the question of equal pay, with power to investigate every business in the United States, administered by a colossal new government agency with vast enforcement powers, would not be helpful to women, as far as I can see.”
55. “Just the natural thing that comes in all political campaigns when you desperately want to get before the people; it is about all you can do.”
Alice Paul Quotes About Courage
56. “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.”
57. “Every person had his own seat, always.”
58. “I didn’t think I was much of a success, but anyway I tried.”
59. “This was just—you felt that you were living the life and that you could see what the life of the ordinary person and all the handicaps and troubles and so on that they had.”
60. “So sad, you know, not to keep up all your connections with these people that you think we’re so wonderful.”
61. “Too many terms corrupts politicians so they only want to be reelected.”
62. “People wouldn’t pay enough and didn’t want to pay enough.”
63. “You know if you feel some group that’s your group is the underdog you want to try to help; it’s natural I guess for everybody.”
64. “The President can pardon us again… and again and again, but… picketing will continue, and sooner or later, he will have to do something about it.”
65. “It was sort of a generation—I think maybe people are marrying in colleges now much more than they were then.”
66. “I knew in a very short time I was never going to be a social worker because I could see that social workers were not doing much good in the world. That’s what I thought anyway.”
67. “To me, it was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote.”
68. “I’ve done all I can on composing, and now the awful problem, with my complete lack of oratorical knowledge or any oratorical power, how will I deliver it outdoors to all these people?”
69. “If men can make laws that affect women’s bodies, women should be able to make laws that affect men’s bodies.”
70. “We women musce as men do.”