Ten Quotes from MacArthur Fellows on International Women’s Day

Every year we award MacArthur Fellowships of $625,000 to individuals who display an extraordinary amount of talent and creativity. The no-strings-attached Fellowships encourage talented and creative people to pursue their intellectual and professional endeavors.

On International Women’s Day, we wanted to highlight the voices of a few women who are among the 1000+ MacArthur Fellows. We present these reflections as a way to uplift their personal stories and aspirations, share their collective challenges and triumphs, and shed light on their work to help make the world a better place.

In the comments, let us know which quotes resonate with you!

“How come we live in an economy where people are working so hard and they can’t make ends meet — literally put food on the table for their babies? It made me think of why so many women are trapped where they are not compensated. How little the work that women do to take care of their own families is supported and how little the professionals that care for us are valued was so striking to me. It struck me also that this is work that has primarily been associated with women of color and immigrant women.” — Ai-jen Poo, Labor Organizer

“I’ve been a feminist since even before I knew what the word meant: as a little girl I was always asking questions: ‘Why can’t I do that?’ ‘Because you’re a girl.’…But I started talking about it because my literature gave me a platform.” — Chimamanda Adichie, Fiction Writer

“Understandably, a lot of the stories that came out first were about serial perpetrators…But at the same time the [#MeToo] movement opened up discussions about the fact that assault can be done by others, even when it isn’t a well-kept secret and is widely known. Those cases were met with a lot more controversy, and the people telling their story were less widely embraced by the public. #MeToo both reflected these biases in the way we think about sexual assault.” — Betsy Levy Paluck, Psychologist

“In science, sometimes your hunt for one thing leads you to something better. At our best, scientists are explorers and what I’ve discovered is that life can change in the blink of an eye. We need to hold on to the glimmers of hope — however small — and to continue to search for what really matters.” — Sara Seager, Astrophysicist

“What people tend to want from us, what an audience wants when they want to consume what Black women produce as our intellectual work, is they often want to consume our emotions and our experiences, which is not always the same as respecting our expertise and our intellectual contribution…as I always say to people, it can be a problem for everybody, I just happen to be talking about Black women.” — Tressie McMillan Cottom, Sociologist, Writer and Public Scholar

“I’m basically always torn. I feel like a horrible mother and not the greatest photographer because I can’t fully give myself to one or the other. People don’t talk about feelings of ambivalence when they get pregnant, because it’s such a taboo. Of course I love my son more than anything, but that’s not the point. I also have this great, incredible love and passion and dedication to my work — and that creates an impossible balance.” — Lynsey Addario, Photojournalist

“I’m optimistic about the future for Native women and tribal nations. I hope to see more Native women elected to public office — at all levels, tribal, state and national. We have been politically and symbolically disenfranchised for too long. I’m so glad our issues are getting more national attention.” — Sarah Deer, Legal Scholar and Advocate

“Maybe because I am a Black woman, there is an automatic assumption that I am somewhere in the margins of science fiction, in the margins of fantasy, and therefore people from outside of the genre’s margins are a little bit more willing to take a look at me, even though I’m writing solidly science-fiction stuff.” — N. K. Jemisin, Speculative Fiction Writer

“If I’m told to do things one way I always find a way of doing it the other way. I was also born on the border between Mexico and the United States, and I think that border mentality — of always looking at things from one side and then the other side — is very intrinsic in how I see reality.” — Cristina Rivera Garza, Fiction Writer

“I think the goal here is that there will be national standards of justice, no matter who you are or where you came from. We don’t want race, their gender, sexual preference to interfere with their life. That’s the movement we’re in and a movement we’re involved in with a lot of people as well.” — Mary Bonauto, Civil Rights Lawyer