Alva Myrdal Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

Alva Myrdal
Marriage, home life, and children, ought to be enjoyed by men and women together. Nobody — and least of all the child — is served by the present tendency to put these things all on one side as 'Woman's World.'

Alva Myrdal
The patriarchal family, with its division of functions between a providing and protective father and a home-making, submissive mother, however satisfactory it may have been in its time, has outlived its day. Bread-winning is no longer a monopoly of men, and home-making should no longer be the monopoly of women.

Alva Myrdal
War is murder. And the military preparations now being made for a potential major confrontation are aimed at collective murder. In a nuclear age the victims would be numbered by the millions. This naked truth must be faced.

Alva Myrdal
First and foremost arms are tools in the service of rival nations, pointing at the possibility of a future war.

Alva Myrdal
The age in which we live can only be characterized as one of barbarism. Our civilization is in the process not only of being militarized, but also being brutalized.

Alva Myrdal
Though it is fairly easy to describe what constitutes a bad home, there is no simple definition of a good one. Conformity with the traditional pattern certainly is no guarantee of the happiest results.

Alva Myrdal
The inventions and the great discoveries have opened up whole continents to reciprocal communication and interchange, provided we are willing.

Alva Myrdal
As a group, housewives to-day suffer more from social isolation and loss of purpose than any other social group, except, perhaps, the old.

Alva Myrdal
The issue of comparative performances can be regarded as settled to-day, both scientifically and practically. Though differences in attitudes between men and women still form a favorite topic of drawing-room conversation... women's abilities are no longer seriously in doubt. These discussions rather seem to be a kind of rearguard action carried on after the main battle has been decided.

Alva Myrdal
Many countries persecute their own citizens and intern them in prisons or concentration camps. Oppression is becoming more and more a part of the systems.

Alva Myrdal