I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world. I think, though, for Western feminism and for American feminism, it not so surprisingly continues to center Western feminism and American feminism. And I think the biggest hurdle American feminists have in terms of taking a more global approach is that too often when you hear American feminists talk about international feminism or women in other countries, it kind of goes along with this condescending point of view like we have to save the women of such-and-such country; we have to help them.
Jessica ValentiNow, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women donโt get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they werenโt careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
Jessica ValentiWhether people identify as feminists or not, if they're doing work that furthers a feminist cause, I think that's wonderful, like if it works for me, right, it works for the movement.
Jessica ValentiI remember at the time - right before we started Feministing.com - doing a Google search for the term "young feminism" and the term "young feminist," and the first thing that came up was a page from the National Organization for Women that was about 10 or 15 years old. And it just struck me as so odd that there was all of this young feminist activism going on, but that it wasn't necessarily being represented online, that the first things in a Google search to come up were really, really old. I think to a certain degree we really filled a gap, and that's why we got such a large readership.
Jessica ValentiWhat bothers me the most about the way that people appropriate feminist language is that they are the same people who are - you know, anti-feminists - they're the same people who say that feminism is ruining the family, yet when it behooves them to, they'll say Sara Palin's a feminist - when all of a sudden it works in their favor.
Jessica Valenti