Daily Inspiration Quote by Robin Morgan

Morgan’s line is a pressure test disguised as reassurance: yes, feminism will “free men,” but not in the painless, TED-talk way that lets them applaud and keep their seat. The pivot from “long run” to “short run” is the whole strategy. She concedes the utopian endpoint to disarm knee-jerk defensiveness, then snaps the focus back to the real fight: power doesn’t dissolve because it’s intellectually persuaded; it’s surrendered because it’s made untenable.

The word “COST” does heavy lifting. It turns liberation from an abstract moral good into a material transaction, a debit on the balance sheet of daily life: who gets believed, who gets promoted, whose anger is “leadership,” whose labor is “helping.” By naming “privilege” plainly, Morgan refuses the sentimental framing of Women’s Liberation as a request for kindness. It’s a redistribution. That clarity is why the quote still stings; it punctures the comforting myth that equality is a win-win you can achieve without anyone losing anything they’ve quietly been enjoying.

The subtext is also a warning about backlash. “No one gives up willingly or easily” anticipates the predictable refrains: feminists are too angry, too divisive, too extreme. Morgan implies those critiques are not evidence of feminism’s failure but proof it has touched the actual levers.

Context matters: second-wave feminism wasn’t lobbying for symbolic inclusion; it was attacking the architecture of gendered life - work, sex, marriage, law, violence. Morgan’s sentence reads like a field report from that battleground, reminding allies and opponents alike that liberation is not a mood. It’s a struggle over who gets to live comfortably by default.