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As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.
Bell HooksMy feminism has evolved way beyond self-empowerment and I see feminism as a path to peace on earth. The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. I do believe. As men and women, together, I really long to feel my society evolve its understanding since we're one of the leaders in the f-word. I want us to grow our idea of feminism collectively and get both men and women involved in undoing patriarchy. It's huge. It's a huge job.
Ani DiFrancoSomething I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason. The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear. If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
Jessica ValentiBecause my work discusses feminism and disapproves of feminism, it is important from the leftist standpoint to destroy Dave Sim as an individual and to ignore his work.
Dave SimI sincerely believe patriarchy to be at the root of all of our social diseases and feminism, it's antidote, to be a prerequisite to peace on earth. feminism provides an alternative way of thinking and structuring things that focuses on and prioritizes relationships and de-emphasizes hierarchy, separation and domination.
Ani DiFrancoElizabeth 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.
Camille PagliaIf feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
Jessica ValentiThere are many feminists who work in the media, and they think that feminism is very important. It is in their own lives, but mostly feminism has had an impact among privileged women in the advanced Western countries. For the most part, it hasn't begun to touch the lives of poor and working women in the Third World, and that distresses me.
Doris LessingShe watched the first episode and she was like, 'This is feminism?' And then by the end of the season, she was like, 'This is feminism.' The tone changed completely. She was really psyched about it.
Allison WilliamsI think I'm speaking for a bunch of girls when I say that the idea that feminism is completely natural and shouldn't even be something that people find mildly surprising. It's just a part of being a girl in 2013.
LordeMost 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.
Simone de BeauvoirIโm going to lie this one right on the line, right here, right now: Iโm pro big pants. Strident feminism NEEDS big pants. Really big. Iโm currently wearing a pair that could have been used as a fire blanket to put out the Great Fire of London at any point during the first 48 hours or so. They extend from the top of my thigh to my belly button, and effectively double up as a second property that I can escape to at weekends. If I were going to run for parliament, it would be solely on a platform of โGet Women In Massive Grundieโsโ.
Caitlin MoranWhatever feminists may say about their only advocating choices, everyone knows the truth: Feminism regards work outside the home as more elevating, honorable, and personally productive than full-time mothering and making a home.
Dennis PragerFeminism catches fire when it draws upon its inherent spirituality. When it does not, it is just one more form of politics, and politics never fed our deepest hungers.
Carol Lee Flinders...feminism differs from reform of any kind, even franchise reform. Feminists, I should say, are not reformers at all, but ratherintellectual biologists and psychologists.
Rheta Childe DorrSecond Wave feminism started with consciousness-raising groups, which sounds "big" but it's really just house parties. Women getting together and saying, "You feel this way?! Me too!" Hanging out is consciousness-raising.
Ani DiFrancoI would like to see the gay population get on board with feminism. It's a beautiful organisation and they've done so much. It seems to me a no-brainer.
Annie LennoxIt seems to be generally acknowledged that sexism is far from defeated, flourishing through religions and other reactionary ideologies, which would definitely and gladly erase the concept of feminism.
Laura MulveyI've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.
Bell HooksContemporary feminism cut itself off from history and bankrupted itself when it spun its puerile, paranoid fantasy of male oppressors and female sex-object victims. Woman is the dominant sex.
Camille PagliaI am a men's liberationist (or "masculist") when men's liberation is defined as equal opportunity and equal responsibility for both sexes. I am a feminist when feminism favors equal opportunities and responsibilities for both sexes. I oppose both movements when either says our sex is THE oppressed sex, therefore, "we deserve rights." That's not gender liberation but gender entitlement. Ultimately, I am in favor of neither a women's movement nor a men's movement but a gender transition movement.
Warren FarrellPeter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls was made all about drugs, when to most of us, that just meant pot and magic mushrooms. He made it seem like we were all shooting heroin into our eyeballs. But that's part of the whole '60s and what it represented: feminism and civil rights and trying to stop the war. Hopefully we're starting to see some of that optimism again, through the excitement around Barack Obama.
Margot KidderIt is up to us to take care of this planet, it is our only home. To betray nature is to betray us. To save nature is to save us. Because whatever you're fighting for, racism or poverty. Feminism, gay rights or any type of equality. It won't matter in the least. Because if we don't all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.
Prince EaI'm really aware of how feminism and feminist rhetoric has been appropriated by the right.
Jessica ValentiSadly, a lot of what passes for feminism these days is just moaning about men, congratulating ourselves on nothing in particular, and mocking them for being big kids while doing everything we can to keep them that way.
Julie BurchillEcology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.
James HillmanWe don't have a clear path forward, and that's been the case for feminism since the 18th century, when the idea of the rights of women actually began.
Erica JongI think we need to embrace feminism, we need to embrace all of the gifts women bring to the workplace.
Mary PortasFeminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries.
Annie LennoxThere have been women who stumbled across Feministing randomly, through a bizarre Google search or something, and had no idea what feminism was. They thought it was something older women do, or bought into the hairy bra-burning man-hating stereotype 100 percent. Anything that deviates from that is very exciting for them.
Jessica ValentiWomen need to take charge of their lives and be as dynamic and active as they can be. I know that some people feel that there's a negative connotation to the notion of feminism like it has some hidden and ugly undercurrent. But that's ridiculous. My mother was a feminist and she was very politically-minded and always anxious to defend women's rights and advance a lot of social issues for women.
Amy PoehlerI mean, if it's worth a cover story that men and women are born different, what in the world must you believe and who got you to believe it?And I'm telling you: It's feminism and liberalism and all these things that seek to make everybody the same, to make everybody "equal," to have equal outcomes, make sure nobody's offended or humiliated, and to make sure nobody's really that much better than anybody else 'cause it isn't fair all these differences.
Rush LimbaughFeminism โฆ I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.' Free to be, if you were a girlโdoctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if youโre a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, thatโs OK too. That notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriersโmanmade barriers, certainly not heaven sent.
Ruth Bader GinsburgFeminism requires precisely what patriarchy destroys in women: unimpeachable bravery in confronting male power
Andrea DworkinHer [Hillary Clinton's] husband is running around on her with everything that walks. He's having an affair with Gennifer Flowers, he's having an affair with... I forget the names, but they're legion. He's cheating on her frequently, and she knows about it and yet puts up with it and stays in Arkansas. Why? At the beginning of feminism, when this is exactly the kind of boorish behavior women are not gonna put up with anymore, no way.
Rush LimbaughFeminism is not simply the idea that women can benefit from rediscovering themselves but also that our whole culture can benefit from correcting its psychic/sexual imbalance through each person becoming whole again.
Anne RushA backlash against women's rights is nothing new. Indeed it's a recurring phenomenon: it returns every time women begin to make some headway towards equality, a seemingly inevitable early frost to the brief flowerings of feminism.
Susan FaludiWhat is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.
Caitlin MoranHillary Clinton said that white women did not vote for her because their husbands told them not to. You remember that? And we all said, "Wait a minute. What happened to feminism? Who are all of these docile women who are only doing what their husbands and boyfriends tell 'em to do?" But Hillary said that. White women didn't vote for her because their husbands didn't like Hillary and their husbands are telling them.
Rush Limbaugh