How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"[…] They would have been mystics and healers, women who worked with herbs and delivered babies. But it would have made them suspect. Women who have power are always feared," she says sadly. (12.15)
Miss Moore is an important strong female figure for Gemma and her friends, someone they look up to because she refuses to give her power over to men or society. She lives independently, educates herself, and values reality rather than illusion.
Quote #8
"She's lying back and thinking of England!" Pippa shrieks, invoking the phrase that every English mother tells her daughter about carnal acts. We're not supposed to enjoy it. We're just supposed to put our mind on making babies for the future of the Empire and to please our husbands. (13.119)
Women are so tightly controlled that they are not allowed to acknowledge the way they feel, not even when it comes to their bodies and reproduction. Ugh.
Quote #9
No one asks how I am or what I am doing. They could not care less. We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they'd like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with cool, tepid water of gracious compliance. A fissure forms in the vessel. I'm cracking open. (26.101)
Okay, so this is a majorly cool moment. Gemma sees the situation clearly and rejects the cultural treatment of women, choosing to go her own way because she values herself above what she can offer a man as a wife. It's some serious girl power.