The abortion question is illustrative of this. Women say, 'We want the right to own our own bodies.' And the opposition, the Moral Majority, say things like, 'When does life begin?' That's not the point. I don't give a damn when it begins. I don't give a damn what the real differences between men and women are. I just don't want to be stepped on when I walk out into the street. I don't want to have to go out at night in terror. I don't want you to tell me that you won't give me a decent job. I don't want to have a low salary. I don't want to be maltreated.

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.

The farther away you move from our dominant assumptions about who should have expertise, generally speaking, the more you have to prove that you have a legitimate claim to whatever you're speaking on. For black women that means we're dealing with racist ideas and stereotypes about who's knowledge is valuable, but we're also dealing with gender stereotypes about who should be allowed to speak and to lead…

A white person is free to think whatever they want to think, but a black person has to think a certain way. Why do you think I get in so much controversy? People have a model of what they think a black person should think.

A woman must have control over her body and her life, and the right to determine her own future. We all recognize that, under certain circumstances, pregnancy can limit the opportunities and potential of our daughters.

It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government. [...] Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.
Restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.

In examining Black theology, it is necessary to make one of two assumptions: (1) either black women have no place in the enterprise, or (2) black men are capable of speaking for us. Both of these assumptions are false and need to be discarded. They arise out of a male-dominated culture, which restricts women to certain areas of the society. In such a culture, men are given the warrant to speak for women on all matters of significance.

...for other women, it is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace. That is unacceptable in 2017. It is the woman's decision about when they choose to have children.

But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?

For Black women as well as Black men, it is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others — for their use and to our detriment. The development of self-defined Black women, ready to explore and pursue our power and interests within our communities, is a vital component in the war for Black liberation.

It’s a women’s issue, but a lot of the women wouldn’t be having abortions if the men would step up and be a part of what they are already biologically a part of. Raising children and having children, even though the women birthed the child, is designed for two people to do it. And there is so much undue stress and pressure on the woman if the other one isn’t there. So, really one thing we do is say it’s a woman’s issue, forcing the woman to have to deal with it on her own, so that way men don’t have to. As a man, I am going to passive-aggressively tell you you are in control, when really I am just telling you that because it makes my life easier, cause that way I don’t have to step up and make a decision. I obviously think that a man has just as much invested in that child as the woman does. He need to be there to support her through the physical changes of the pregnancy, and help and provide emotional strength, and do it together. As much as he has a role in making the baby in the first place, it needs to take both of them the whole way through. Any idea that a man doesn’t have a role in it is not true, and is simply more about politics and making a man’s life easier.

Teresa said that until men gave birth and put up with husbands, as women do, they should not have an opinion - let alone decide on - abortion and divorce. She didn't believe that men had the right to an opinion, much less to pass laws on the female body, since they'd never know the exhaustion of gestation, the pain of labor, and the eternal bondage of motherhood.

As Black women we have the right and responsibility to define ourselves and to seek our allies in common cause: with Black men against racism, and with each other and white women against sexism. But most of all, as Black women we have the right and responsibility to recognize each other without fear and to love where we choose. Both lesbian and heterosexual Black women today share a history of bonding and strength to which our sexual identities and our other differences must not blind us.