Quotes About Feminism

People have accepted the media's idea of what feminism is, but that doesn't mean that it's right or true or real. Feminism is not monolithic. Within feminism, there is an array of opinions.

Recently, I wrote that feminism was 'finding a way of being a girl that doesn't hurt' a way for girls and women to re-negotiate our understanding of the world so that we can become a full and equal part of it rather than just a means of decorating it; to move towards a place where the mere act of being a girl isn't used against us as both a threat and an obligation. Through feminism, I have found a peace of sorts from the sense that my femaleness required a constant apology so that I might be given permission to pass through these narrow corridors.

Elizabeth Taylor is pre-feminist woman. This is the source of her continuing greatness and relevance. She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary clich?. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all men's relations with women.

Diversity has got to be a part of modern feminism, and I think that my feminism is stronger because its an inclusive thing. I won't be backed into a corner that polarizes me against other women. And I wished they wouldn't be either.

Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.

Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights. I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.

Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.

the point of feminism ... is to win women a wider range of experience. Feminism remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated - and enormously effective - efforts to dress it up in greasepaint and turn its proponents into gargoyles.

I was called a feminist, and what I heard was, 'You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.' This caricature is how feminists have been warped by the people who fear feminism most, the same people who have the most to lose when feminism succeeds.

If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.

I have been villainized because of my identity - I've received nasty blog comments and emails just based on my willingness to identify with feminism by people who clearly don't understand what I value and why I identify as a feminist. Ultimately, I'm less concerned with whether or not people identify as feminist and am more concerned with whether or not people understand what feminism is. If they don't want to identify as a feminist that's fine. I respect people's decision to identify any way they want and expect that same respect in return, although I don't always get it.

[T]he presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it - it's simply in the water.

It's actually technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn't be allowed to have a debate on a woman's place in society. You'd be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor, biting down on a wooden spoon so as not to disturb the men's card game, before going back to hoeing the rutabaga field.

In the films I've done recently, I've been learning a little more about the side of myself that enjoys being a light. I remember when I used to dress in all black and you'd say. "Just be pretty, hold your head up, be proud. Be a pleasant person and don't cover yourself so much with darkness, your need to be a little crazy." Now I have nothing against anything I've been in before, because I love all sides of me, but I have been experimenting more with that lovely woman side. In this age of feminism, I would hate for the whole gentlemen and ladies things to be lost.

I don't think you can say that feminism has made women critical of marriage because women have been critical of marriage for centuries.

Most feminists in France came to feminism after '68 as a result of the hypocrisy they experienced in leftist movements. In these movements, where everyone believed there was going to be true equality, fraternity between men and women, and that together they were going to struggle against this rotten society, even there they noticed that the leftists, the militants, kept them "in their place." Women made the coffee while the others did the talking; they were the ones who typed the letters.

When you say you're not a feminist, if feminism hadn't existed, and you didn't live in a feminist world, you wouldn't be saying that, because you'd be too busy scrubbing out the toilets in back while cooking up your husband's tea and dying in childbirth at the age of 34.

Feminism is a theory, lesbianism is a practice.

The kind of organic wave, the way that waves move, and I'm not just talking about feminism, the way that a social movement might rise like a wave. It's harder to build any kind of wave now. Things are important to you and then they recede within a day. That's the only thing that keeps me from believing that there's going to be any one organic big wave; although the Americana (music) thing has been happening for a while.

In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can you really bomb feminism into a country? And now, after 25 years of brutal war - 10 years against the Soviet occupation, 15 years of US occupation - the Taliban is riding back to Kabul and will soon be back to doing business with the United States.

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.

Emancipation can only come from within; it cannot be dictated by someone else. A law banning the wearing of headscarves changes nothing, except perhaps external appearance. Naturally, Islamic feminism must also include the right to education, to work and the freedom to select one's own husband.

I certainly embrace all the movement that's going on these days about equality for women and equal rights. In general, I would apply that to all nationalities and all races. I think we do need more awareness, generosity, and compassion than we have right now. But in terms of feminism, I embrace it wholeheartedly. Not in a kind of militant way, but I've always known that it matters.

I was in just the right generation to have taken feminism seriously by osmosis - also the generation when the breakdown of the family really began and for whom The Smiths were something new and essential.

I think that blogging and the Internet has completely changed feminism for ever, I think.

The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.

At Brandies I discovered Feminism. And I instantly became a convert... writing brilliant papers in my Myths of Patriarchy class, in which I likened my fate as a woman to other victims throughout the ages.

A viable new feminism must directly confront the realm of practice.

So far as Feminism seeks to adjust the legal position of woman to that of man, so far as it seeks to offer her legal and economic freedom to develop and act in accordance with her inclinations, desires, and economic circumstances—so far it is nothing more than a branch of the great liberal movement, which advocates peaceful and free evolution.

The Oneida Perfectionists, along with some of the others, believed that feminism, and abolitionism, and other causes that they pursued in their own way without participating with other people outside of their communities, were all piecemeal reforms. That's what makes a utopian a utopian, this idea that they were going to create a whole new world from scratch.

Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general-but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

Real feminism is spinsterhood. It's time America admitted that old maids give all women a good name.

You have to take the basics of feminism and the kind of outline of it and do what you do with it. You have to make things work for your own life.

Feminism doesn't need re-branding. It names a problem and it is an uncomfortable truth for many

Third World feminism is about feeding people in all their hungers.

I feel excited in that I think boys born to feminists have a leg up. At least, the ones I've met seem like they do. There's something really vital about that exchange. I think I'd only imagined, beforehand, handing down a feminism to a young girl. But I'm newly excited by the challenge of raising a boy.

Feminism's latest victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war. Congratulations.

Feminism is not antisexuality. On the contrary. It says that sexuality shouldn't be confused with violence and dominance and that it should be a matter of free choice. It shouldn't be forced on you by economics, including dependence on a husband, or by pressure.

People ask me: "Do I consider myself to be a Latino writer?" "What does it mean to be Latino?" Those are very strange questions to answer , but feminism is easier because it's just an ideology, a way I live my life. And absolutely in the most political sense I try to sit down and write very strong female roles.

I feel sad that we have allowed these knee-jerk feminists who want to act like it's a struggle against men...but again that's the least politically developed strand of feminism.

Any action a woman engages in from a spirit of joy, and within a similarly safe and joyous environment, falls within the city-walls of feminism. A girl has a right to dance how she wants, when her favourite record comes on.

I spend a lot of time on college campuses, and I don't quite understand where the idea comes from that young women are not moving forward. In fact, statistically, if you look at the public opinion polls, young women are much more supportive of feminism and feminist issues than older women are.

I feel bad that people think that "feminism" is a dirty word. I don't understand that at all, I'm proud to be labeled a feminist. I consider myself a person who has throughout my entire life stood up for myself. It's never been my ambition to be someone who takes a backseat to anything. I'm not a male basher at all. I divide people into assholes and non-assholes, and that's genderless. I encounter sexism everyday.

Hate speech it seems to be is been defined by the political left as anything we don't like, anything that violates social justice doctrines, feminism, Black Lives Matter kind of ideology. It is not something that I have ever heard particularly effectively defined.

There are so many problems. Women can go to work on these as well without giving up their feminism.

feminism is for everybody

The fact that there's a more open discussion about everything from feminism to racism ... I look at my two boys ... this is their future I'm talking about. When I'll be long gone, it'll be them and their kids. I know that sometimes the darkest times are followed by the lightest. Sometimes bad things have to happen for good things to happen. At the very worst, we're having very open discussions, discussions about things we didn't even know f-king existed. I talk to my friends about it and they are absolutely shocked. They didn't even know.

I think feminism has had a major impact on anthropology