A Left-Handed Commencement Address: Dreams, Hopes and Plans Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)

Quote #4

What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign. (38-39)

She's not really advocating for people to be miserable, although reading this sentence on its own could lead you to believe that. But when she continues later on towards the end of the speech, she clarifies that the "dark place" is where souls are grown. So, basically, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Quote #5

So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives. That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own. That you will do your work there, whatever you're good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it's second-class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they're going to give you equal pay for equal time. I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. (63-68)

TL/DR: She hopes that women will embrace whatever role they've chosen for themselves, and be good at what they do while they earn equal pay as their male counterparts. She wants them to find a way to live their lives without being victims or despots, and always remember that they are strong because they are women. Got it.