Top 100 Quotes About Feminism
#2. Some have a difficult time with feminism. 'Why not a human liberation movement?' they say. The answer is that the power differences between the sexes, races, and classes are still so extreme that invoking humanism, at this time, dangerously denies that fact.
Loraine Hutchins
#3. I would love for everyone to be a feminist, but I have to respect people's choices. If you don't want to be a feminist and don't want to claim feminism, that's entirely your right.
Roxane Gay
#4. Does rejecting feminism mean rejecting women's equality? No, because that's not what feminism is about. Rejecting feminism means recognizing that women don't need feminism to make them equal to men because they already are equal--just not the same.
Suzanne Venker
#5. I knew that my newfound activism and feminism was going to improve my acting, because I was seeing things not just in very narrow, individual, kind of Freudian terms, but seeing them in a much broader, societal way that was going to deepen and enrich my talent.
Jane Fonda
#6. Mainstream feminism might remember that the war on women always starts with the war on whores.
Molly Crabapple
#7. Has feminism increased the pool of happy women?
Dennis Prager
#8. Sotomayor's vainglorious lecture bromide about herself as 'a wise Latina' trumping white men is a vulgar embarrassment - a vestige of the bad old days of male-bashing feminism.
Camille Paglia
#9. I'm a feminist; I grew up with feminism, but I also think there's a way in which we need to shake things up so that we can push it further and in other directions.
Eve Ensler
#10. We got over feminism, too. At least women did, as soon as they were hired for those high-prestige jobs that only men used to have. It turns out that work sucks.
P. J. O'Rourke
#11. What feminism calls patriarchy is simply civilization , an abstract system designed by men but augmented and now co-owned by women.
Camille Paglia
#12. I'm more interested in a feminism that ends discrimination for all people. It's not just about a woman becoming the CEO of a company or something. It's connected to racism and classism and gender issues that go beyond the binary.
Kathleen Hanna
#13. World War II put feminism on hold for a long time; the men went away to fight, a lot of women in those years got jobs both in teaching and in factories - at all social levels - which they enjoyed very much. A lot of them were quite happy during the war.
Margaret Drabble
#14. I used to think feminism was a liberating force - now I see many of those people are just censors under a different name.
Lydia Lunch
#15. I think that instead of feminism being a political thing, it should be an act of creativity. It's more of a rock n' roll thing.
Caitlin Moran
#16. 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.
Tariq Ramadan
#17. I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world.
Suheir Hammad
#18. I didn't know feminism was actually a thing until I left home and found out the country didn't run the way my mom's house did,
Joss Whedon
#19. I try not to write songs in which men glamorize their own need for approval from women. That's kinda a bogus way to go out. But I try to do this quietly. I'm not about to go around telling people how they should or shouldn't think. My feminism is for me.
John Darnielle
#20. Like many traditional feminists, I became one of the boys, only better. For a while it gave me a buzz to win at their game, but ultimately, that kind of power just goes nowhere. Traditional feminism excludes men and so perpetuates conflict. I am not interested in warring about power.
Scilla Elworthy
#21. I think that the early feminism at least overlooked the fact that partnership and children can provide happiness. It isn't the only way but for very many people it is the most important way.
Kristina Schroder
#22. God, what a depressing day that was and what an irony that Britain's first female prime minister had to be Margaret Thatcher. She was the woman who asked, 'What has feminism ever done for me?' Well, dear, if you need to ask that question then you're obviously not very bright
Jo Brand
#23. Feminism never harmed anybody unless it was some feminists. The danger is that the study and contemplation of "ourselves" may become so absorbing that it builds by slow degrees a high wall that shuts out the great world of thought.
Rheta Childe Dorr
#24. As feminism has changed academia by enlarging what is taught, academia has sometimes changed feminism.
Gloria Steinem
#25. Korean feminism has been swept away by popular culture. It became a sort of old-fashioned trend or a joke.
Kim Hyesoon
#26. Certain issues have been associated with contemporary feminism and in a certain sense circumscribed for that reason.
Carol Gilligan
#28. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Gloria Steinem
#29. At the end of the day, feminism is not about what choice you make, it's about having the ability to make a choice.
Jennifer Baumgardner
#30. American women are evolving backward
becoming more focused on their looks than ever. Feminism has been defeated by narcissism.
Maureen Dowd
#31. If you do not regard feminism with an uplifting sense of the gloriousness of woman's industrial destiny, or in the way, in short, that it is prescribed, by the rules of the political publicist, that you should, that will be interpreted by your opponents as an attack on woman.
Wyndham Lewis
#32. When people ask me do I believe in feminism - well, I didn't even know I was a feminist. I was the top of the bill; I've always been the top of the bill. So I don't know what equality is.
Cilla Black
#33. People have told me that Ive helped them feel confident, like they can say things they want to say. They can talk about feminism in class without people calling them a lesbian. Thats so amazing that I can make someone feel like that.
Lorde
#34. You know it's very important, the role of a mother ... I don't know, but it's feminism to me to love your kids.
Carine Roitfeld
#35. I 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 Lennox
#36. Most of these feminists are radical, frustrated lesbians, many of them, and man-haters, and failures in their relationships with men, and who have declared war on the male gender. The biblical condemnation of feminism has to do with its radical philosophy and goals. That's the bottom line.
Jerry Falwell
#37. What a loss it would be if feminism killed chivalry.
Joyce Rachelle
#38. The purpose of feminism is to free the uniqueness of the individual and to understand that inside each of us is a unique human being who is a combination of heredity and environment.
Gloria Steinem
#39. That a woman claims not to be feminist does not diminish the necessity of feminism. If anything, it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#40. I think feminism means what it has always meant - women want to use all their gifts, all their talents and be judged impartially for them. I don't think feminism has ever meant anything else.
Erica Jong
#41. I feel that faith and feminism have a deep relationship to each other and that both are responses to the deep human yearning for connection and for peace on earth, and that they both have a vision of universal human equity.
Helen LaKelly Hunt
#42. My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.
Erica Jong
#43. 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.
Jessica Valenti
#44. I am a feminist, but I'm not an extremist. I know what feminism is, but I'm not all women empowerment, marching in the streets. I'm not a die-hard girl's girl.
Scheana Marie
#45. Feminism 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 Lennox
#46. Christian feminists can celebrate any sort of feminism that brings more justice and human flourishing to the world, no matter who is bringing it, since we recognize the hand of God in all that is good.
Sarah Bessey
#48. Whenever women struggle with breast cancer and face better care than ever, that's feminism.
Bell Hooks
#49. If you propose there is a feminism problem in Korea, somebody would point out that you are bringing up antiquated issues. No one acknowledges that discrimination against women is still widespread.
Kim Hyesoon
#50. Feminism is not anti- male, Feminism is anti-sexism
Bell Hooks
#51. Feminism is the theory. Lesbianism is the practice.
Alison Bechdel
#52. As for feminism, I am a womanist more than I'm a feminist.
Kola Boof
#53. I think of feminism as more of a political ideology.
Callie Khouri
#54. Yet feminism has never killed anyone. Machismo, it kills every day.
Benoite Groult
#55. Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to choose between public justice and private happiness.
Susan Faludi
#56. In my opinion, no feminism worthy of the name is not methodologically post-marxist.
Catharine MacKinnon
#57. No, feminism isn't 'over.' We need it not only to challenge injustice but because the whole gender expectations thing is bad for men, too.
Robert Webb
#58. He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for she. Real feminism is spinsterhood.
Florence King
#59. Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list of women's issues.
Charlotte Bunch
#60. Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
Pat Robertson
#61. I had been a feminist all my life, but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with you unappeasable hunger for male bodies.
Erica Jong
#62. The cornerstone of the political correctness that dominates campus culture is radical feminism.
Phyllis Schlafly
#63. I was trying to uphold what I thought feminism was as best I could by supporting women, by trying to create an opportunity to get women to get together, play music together and celebrate the fact that we are having great success making music on our own and together.
Sarah McLachlan
#64. I think Julia is defining a new feminism. It's the power of the open heart. And its ok to be sexual.
Kenny Loggins
#65. We think that maybe feminism isn't appropriate anymore, since Western women have really made enormous strides. But check out the rest of the world if you'd like to not be able to sleep tonight.
Elizabeth Lesser
#66. Feminism is a way of thinking and being, not a way of dressing. You know a feminist by her gaze, not her neckline.
Sophia Amoruso
#67. Women are not stupid, but they were not clever enough to realise that feminism did not bring freedom, but the opposite. That's why I'm glad feminism is dead.
Michel Houellebecq
#68. Well. If you are worried about the effects of feminism and you are a man, it's probably because you are worried that men will start to be treated like women have been treated since the dawn of time. By this I mean worse, which makes you nervous, no doubt.
Alida Nugent
#69. If you are not a feminist in love, you fail to recognise someone who does not love you. Feminism makes love easier. Otherwise, there is the danger of feeling romantically drawn to someone who does not see you as an equal.
Gloria Steinem
#70. Owning a gun in America is one way for conservative white males to demonstrate their anger at crime, liberalism, feminism, and modernity.
Dan Savage
#71. Karla Jay's intimate account of life in the early years of feminism and gay liberation is as irresistible as a novel, but as credible, humorous, and unexpected as real life.
Gloria Steinem
#72. Feminism is not a patch; it is a whole new pattern which can only be realized by weaving a new garment, seamless from top to bottom and multicolored from the beginning.
Sandra Marie Schneiders
#73. In the late '60s and '70s, when feminism was on the up sweep, there was an awareness of things that we're losing again.
Sandra Bernhard
#74. Why is there even a conversation about feminism?
Lily Allen
#75. I see feminism as a massive party. It's cool, the idea that 50% of the population can now start doing things and having fun and experimenting with their hair and makeup.
Caitlin Moran
#76. No matter what issues I have with feminism, I am a feminist. I cannot and will not deny the importance and absolute necessity of feminism. Like most people, I'm full of contradictions, but I also don't want to be treated like shit for being a woman.
Roxane Gay
#77. Long before feminism made fashion a guilty pleasure, my first experience of the sisterhood among strangers took place in a communal dressing room.
Judith Thurman
#78. There was a dance that everyone was doing that was heavily skewed with the power in one direction, but the dance was basically working, and then the dance got really disrupted with the first wave of feminism, and nobody found their footing yet - not the guys, not the women.
Amanda Palmer
#79. As I started to think about how I can claim feminism while also acknowledging my humanity and my imperfections, 'bad feminism' simply seemed like the best answer.
Roxane Gay
#80. I'm a poster child for feminism whether I like it or not, but I was resistant to the part of me that was a woman.
Zoe Bell
#81. Feminism? The word itself means exactly the same thing to me as the word God does - it's a spirituality that is deeply personal, deeply subjective, and deeply no one else's business. You can identify the word however you want, it's just the non-exploration of it that is unacceptable to me.
Amber Tamblyn
#82. It's about labeling. For me feminism is bra-burning lesbianism. It's very unglamorous. I'd like to see it rebranded. We need to see a celebration of our femininity and softness.
Geri Halliwell
#83. My debt to feminism is simply incalculable. Feminism allowed me to see past a 'reality' that I had once taken as a given. It helped me to pay attention to countless voices, my own included, that I had been taught 'don't count.' Feminism allows me to maintain hope.
Harriet Lerner
#85. Feminism is a movement for change, not a changing of the guard.
Finn Mackay
#86. Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.
Catharine MacKinnon
#87. Not a shred of evidence supports the existence of matriarchy anywhere in the world at any time. [ ... ] The matriarchy hypothesis, revived by American feminism, continues to flourish outside the university
Camille Paglia
#88. But see, feminism isn't about helping a fellow sister. It's about an equal playing field. It's about giving women choices, not guarantees." Tia
Harlan Coben
#89. 'The Truth About Lorin Jones' will undoubtedly shock and offend as many readers as it will amuse, since it dares to make fun of feminism - of its manners, if not its politics.
Edmund White
#90. Flyaway, problem hair is the enemy of feminism, and was probably invented by the Man to crush Susan Sontag.
Caitlin Moran
#91. 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.
Kathleen Hanna
#92. 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.
Clifford Geertz
#93. Environmental concerns and feminism are locked together. Generally, women have closer connections to the organic nature of our lives.
Carolyn Kizer
#94. When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
#95. Contemporary 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 Paglia
#96. People associate feminism with hate - with man hate - and that's really negative. I don't think that's what feminism is about at all - it's really positive. I think that's why women became reluctant to use the word.
Emma Watson
#97. Feminism isn't called the longest revolution for nothing.
Gloria Steinem
#98. A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists. You have this cheap, hideous 'girl power' sort of fad, which I think is pretty benign at best, but at worst, I think it's a way of taking the politics out of feminism and making it some kind of fashion.
Ani DiFranco
#99. The complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the 'revolutionary or utopian' goal of feminism.
Kate Millett
#100. Most people have no understanding of the myriad ways feminism has positively changed all our lives. Sharing feminist thought and practice sustains feminist movement. Feminist knowledge is for everybody.
Bell Hooks
