Daily Inspiration Quote by Alveda King

Alveda King’s line lands like a church-side aside: blunt, slightly teasing, and meant to travel fast. “A woman knows a skirt-chaser” isn’t trying to be poetic; it’s trying to be useful. The power is in its compression. “Knows” implies a kind of lived literacy - pattern recognition earned the hard way - and it quietly elevates women as credible judges in a culture that often doubts their read of men’s motives. “Skirt-chaser” is old-fashioned slang, almost quaint, which lets the accusation pass as common sense instead of scandal. It’s moral critique smuggled in as folksy wisdom.

As a clergyperson, King is also working a familiar pastoral register: warning without sounding punitive. The subtext is about accountability and self-protection. Women are urged to trust their instincts; men are reminded that reputations are social, not private. It hints at a community ethic: flirtation isn’t merely personal “behavior,” it’s a relational disturbance that women, in particular, are forced to manage.

There’s also a gendered edge that’s doing real work. The sentence assumes women are the ones who must detect and deflect male promiscuity, placing surveillance labor on them. That may reflect a conservative sexual framework, but it can also read as feminist in a street-level way: stop gaslighting women about what they’re seeing. The context, then, is less romance than power - who gets believed, who gets warned, and who pays the social cost when desire turns predatory.