The problem is capitalism. The problem is that in order to sell seven billion people on the necessity of globalisation, we've created a moral universe where people who do not work to create profit are considered less than human, and used as surplus labour to drive down the cost of wages.
Laurie PennyIf all women on earth woke up tomorrow feeling truly positive and powerful in their own bodies, the economies of the globe would collapse overnight.
Laurie PennyThe fact that โattention seekingโ is still considered a slur says much about the role of women in public life, on every scale.
Laurie PennyMen grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's I refuse to burn my energy adding extra magic and sparkle to other peopleโs lives to get them to love me. Iโm busy casting spells for myself.
Laurie PennyFemininity itself has become a brand, a narrow and shrinking formula of commoditised identity which can be sold back to women who have become alienated from their own power as living, loving, labouring beings.
Laurie PennyThat's how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because changing it seems like too much bother. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turn away or yell, as a child might, that it's not your fault. Of course it isn't your fault. I'm sure you're lovely. That doesn't mean you don't have a responsibility to do something about it.
Laurie Penny