Quotes About Feminism

People sometimes say that we will know feminism has done its job when half the CEOs are women. That’s not feminism; to quote Catharine MacKinnon, it’s liberalism applied to women. Feminism will have won not when a few women get an equal piece of the oppression pie, served up in our sisters’ sweat, but when all dominating hierarchies - including economic ones - are dismantled.

My 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.

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.

When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.

This is the burgeoning days of feminism. This is when the militant feminists are the feminism hormones are raging. They are excited. They are happy. This is a new day! They are through being plugged into these formulas where men run everything and you're in servitude to them.

Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.

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

What we're seeing now is not just a backlash against feminism. When you look at guys like [Jesse] Helms in the '80s or even Reagan and Bush, there was a real political backlash against feminism. This is different. This is a parodic recreation of the destruction of traditional masculinity. Look at these hollow men. Look at Steve Bannon who wears sweat pants, who doesn't shave. Or Yiannopoulos who is just a clown. This is toxic masculinity. It's new. To see it as a return to the past is a mistake. It's the breakdown of traditional masculinity, rather than its retrenchment.

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.

The way I view feminism — and I know there are a lot of different things going on — but, at its purest form, to me, it's a very positive, supportive, nurturing, empowerment thing. I mean, God, who isn't a feminist? If you don't think women are as good as men, you're not a good person. I like to think that most of the population of people worth being friends with are feminists, if that's what feminism means.

You have to have your personal life, and at the end of the day I think what people forget, especially when you're online, is that you're a person too, right, and that you're not this ideal of feminism, that everything you do like feminism just like falls in your wake.

There are people who view their feminism in different ways. I used to beat myself up if I didn't react to things like I was supposed to.

The benefits of feminism have been unequally distributed, because the move toward gender equality and gender neutrality has been countered to a large extent by the increase in economic inequality.

I've become this voice for a millennial generation of feminism, which is awesome, but at the same time it's complicated. We all know I'm a girl, I'm a woman, but it's difficult to figure out how to talk about it and express how important it is without beating it with a hammer and having it be, "So you're a girl in music! So you're a girl in music!" Yes, I'm a girl in music - can we just talk about something else?

Feminism is what I do with my life, it’s how I spend my days, it’s my job, it’s not just an opinion I have among many other opinions.

I don't know why people are so reluctant to say they're feminists. Could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word?

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.

Feminism is lesbian in the sense that lesbians have always hated the female role and coveted the male role. It is based on Marxist notions of "equality" and class conflict that have no relevance to mystical and biological phenomenon such as love.

We don't want to be wounds ("No, you're the wound!") but we should be allowed to have them, to speak about having them, to be something more than just another girl who has one. We should be able to do these things without failing the feminism of our mothers, and we should be able to represent women who hurt without walking backward into a voyeuristic rehashing of the old cultural models.

I hope that by modeling feminism in my own life, work and relationships that it will haut become an organic part of my daughter's life. But I'm also fully prepared for her to become a Republican as a way to rebel as a teenager - that would be just my luck!

My feminism is humanism, with the weakest being those who I represent, and that includes many beings and life forms, including some men.

Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to 'choose' between public justice and private happiness.

I think people resist feminism because they're scared. I think for women, they're scared of being picked on or of being called out.

The Hillary Clinton story basically is this. And see how similar this sounds to the old days before the modern era of feminism raised its head. You're a girl, you're a young woman, what do you do? You go off to college. That's what she did. Why do you go? To meet your husband. That's what she did. She wouldn't be where she is if it weren't for her husband.

I oftentimes receive the question, "What do you think is the most important social issue to focus on?" Or, "What's the most important component of identity? Is it gay rights or race or feminism?" And I'm like, "Well, they're all intertwined. It's all one conversation at the end of the day. You can't just pick one." I mean, people experience all kinds of prejudice because of all different parts of themselves. And that doesn't make one part more important than the other.

I think it would be really rotten to tell boys that schools won't cater for them properly because men have unquestionably been dominant for thousands of years. A feminism that deliberately neglects boys is immoral in my opinion.

I'm writing a review of three books on feminism and science, and it's about social constructionism. So I would say I'm a social constructionist, whatever that means

In my freshman year of college, when a male professor asked the class, "Who here identifies as a feminist?" Only one girl raised her hand, and the rest of us just sat there. He basically just shamed us for the rest of the class   -   in a constructive way. He went around the room and said to each girl, "Why didn't you raise your hand? Feminism means men and women deserve the same rights, and that the balance in the world is currently tilted in men's favour.

We 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.

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.

My political views have definitely changed over the years. Maybe a better way of saying it is that I have grown into my convictions; the values and ideas of radical feminism that I started to articulate in my late teens feel more internalized or "second nature."

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 am a sworn atheist and therefore from my point of view the Talmud or the Koran don't constitute works of political philosophy but rather writings that stand in utter contradiction to concepts like logic, freedom, feminism, secularism, brotherhood - which are my ideals.

Self-esteem is the basis for feminism because self-esteem is based on defining yourself and believing in that definition. Self-esteem is regarding yourself as a grown-up.

Feminism … 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 girl—doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if you’re a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, that’s 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 barriers—manmade barriers, certainly not heaven sent.

My generation fought very hard for feminism, and we fought very hard to not be labeled as you had to have a husband or you had to be in a relationship, or you were somehow not a cool chick.

Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones by saying he had merely made clumsy passes, then accepted rejection, so there was no sexual harassment involved. As to his dallying with an emotionally immature 21-year-old, Ms. Steinem noted, 'Welcome sexual behavior is about as relevant to sexual harassment as borrowing a car is to stealing one.' Surely what's good for the Comeback Kid is good for the Terminator.

Hillary 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.

I hate feminism. It is poison.

The idea of being a feminist-so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex-but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue

I see many more men who are feminist, or at least who have learned about life in the context of feminism.

I am not at all for a feminism which is entirely separatist, which would say, "this domain is purely for women." I don't believe that at all.

I think we were all born feminists because we all faced discrimination since we can remember, never pertaining to a group, so we made our own. That is feminism to me.

The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.

The stories I would hear from men who were going through divorces and in child custody battles, the lies their wives told about them being predators, that they had fondled or abused the children, and these guys didn't know what to do. It wasn't true. They had no idea how to combat it. And I said, "A large part of this is modern feminism. You've gotta understand it."

I was interested in the ripples of feminism passing through Britain and Ireland in the mid-Seventies - how the reverberations of the feminist political movement were being felt in suburban households. So many novels end with a marriage.

I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.

I stand on the shoulders of giants that have gone before me, in terms of affording people like myself, women, the access to democracy, the vote, medical treatment, education, everything that I've been given. It's all been earned. Therefore I feel it's incumbent on me personally to just contribute something, to add to a collective voice that needs to be here right now, to build it up to a tipping point, to make the world aware that women's rights still have to be addressed and that the word 'feminism' has been devalued and needs to be reclaimed.