Your B.A. does not belong to you alone, just as the earth does not belong to its present tenants alone. Your education was lent to you by women of the past, and you will give some back to living women, and to your daughters seven generations from now.
Naomi Wolf
Scripps College Commencement 1992, 1992
La historia detrás de esta cita
Wolf's second message — about money and fair compensation — contained this passage that reframed individual achievement as collective inheritance. She was urging women to 'claim money not out of greed, but so you can tithe to women's political organizations, shelters and educational institutions.' The seven-generations framing borrowed from Indigenous philosophy, connecting the struggles of women past to the obligations of women present. Wolf argued that 'sexist institutions won't yield power if we are just patient long enough. The only language the status quo understands is money, votes and public embarrassment.' The practical implication was clear: financial independence was not personal luxury but political necessity — the mechanism through which women could 'open opportunities to women who deserve the chances you've had.'