“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.”

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Almost any woman can land in the “impure” camp and be blamed for sexual violence committed against her. “Impure” behavior isn’t limited to being sexually active, either -drinking, staying out to late, or, in some cases, not being white all qualify as well.

Take Cassandra Hernandez, a female Air Force airperson who was raped by three of her colleagues at a party where, yes, she was drinking. After she went to the hospital and filed a report, the Air Force treated her to a harsh interrogation -so harsh, in fact, that Hernandez decided not to testify against her attackers. Instead of giving her the treatment she deserved, the Air Force charged Hernandez with underage drinking and “indecent acts”. To make matters worse, Hernandez’s three attackers were offered immunity from sexual assault if they testified against her on the indecent-acts charge. So, in effect, she was charged with her own rape.

Silence is deeply woven into the fabric of the female experience.

A 2010 study by the Girl Scouts found that girls downplayed their confidence, kindness, and talents online in favor of highlighting how fun, funny, and cool they were. The study suggested a girl’s social media profile was a persona she constructed, a photoshopped billboard on the information superhighway. Unlike the messiness of real life, where you might come to school wearing the “wrong” outfit or say something awkward in class, a Facebook profile is a cool, controlled social avatar intended to stand in for you. Online spaces like Facebook and Tumblr are new social proving grounds for girls, rivaling the hallways where girls show off new clothes or friends.