“She had stayed a virgin so she wouldn’t be called a tramp or a slut; had married so she wouldn’t be called an old maid; faked orgasms so she wouldn’t be called frigid; had children so she wouldn’t be called barren; had not been a feminist because she didn’t want to be called queer and a man hater; never nagged or raised her voice so she wouldn’t be called a bitch … She had done all that and yet, still, this stranger had dragged her into the gutter with the names that men call women when they are angry. Evelyn wondered; why always sexual names? And why, when men wanted to degrade other men, did they call them pussies? As if that was the worst thing in the world. What have we done to be thought of that way? To be called cunt? People didn’t call blacks names anymore, at least not to their faces. “Italians weren’t wops or dagos, and there were no more kikes, Japs, chinks, or spics in polite conversation. Every“body had a group to protest and stick up for them. But women were still being called names by men. Why? Where was our group? It’s not fair. She was getting more upset by the minute. Evelyn thought, I wish Idgie had been with me. She would not have let that boy call her names. I’ll bet she would have knocked him down.” “Few people who saw this plump, pleasant-looking middle-aged, middle-class housewife out shopping or doing other menial everyday chores could guess that, in her imagination, she was machine-gunning the genitals of rapers and stomping abusive husbands to death in her specially designed wife-beater boots. Evelyn had even made up a secret code name for herself … a name feared around the world: TOWANDA THE AVENGER!”
“Just thank the good Lord He made you white. I just cain’t imagine why anybody would want to be colored when they don’t hafta be.” “Oh, I don’t know, they just seem to fit in with each other … have more of a good time, or something. I’ve always felt … well … stiff, I guess, and they always look like they’re having so much fun.”
Excerpt From: Fannie Flagg. “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/Igx_y.l
“She had been a good girl, had always acted like a lady, never raised her voice, always deferred to everybody and everything. She had assumed that somewhere down the line there would be a reward for that; a prize.” “So all that struggle to stay pure, the fear of being touched, the fear of driving a boy mad with passion by any gesture, and the ultimate fear—getting pregnant—all that wasted energy was for nothing.” “Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat. Hadn’t the apostle St. Paul said for women not to usurp power over the men but to be in silence?”
“Simple, honey. You’re just going through a bad case of menapause, that’s all that’s the matter with you. What you need is to take your hormones and to get out every day and walk in the fresh air and walk yourself right through it. That’s what I did when I was in it.” “Lately, to get her mind off that cold gun and pulling the trigger, she would close her eyes and force herself to hear Mrs. Threadgoode’s voice and if she breathed deep and concentrated she would soon see herself in Whistle Stop.”
Excerpt From: Fannie Flagg. “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/Igx_y.l