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How to Be a Woman

Book by Caitlin Moran · 43 quotes · Feminism, Children, Feminist

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How to Be a Woman Quotes

“For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.”

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“These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it’s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to have a debate on women’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 quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it’s going in your bank account, and not your husband’s. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges.”

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“When the subject turns to abortion, cosmetic intervention, birth, motherhood, sex, love, work, misogyny, fear, or just how you feel in your own skin, women still won’t often tell the truth to each other unless they are very, very drunk. Perhaps the endlessly reported rise in female binge-drinking is simply modern women’s attempt to communicate with each other. Or maybe it is because Sancerre is so very delicious. To be honest, I’ll take bets on either.”

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“The people around you are mirrors, I think to myself. The dog is paddling in the lake, I watch her lap at the water. You see yourself reflected in their eyes. If the mirror is true and smooth, you see your true self. That's how you learn who you are. And you might be a different person to different people, but it's all feedback that you need, in order to know yourself. But if the mirror is broken or cracked or warped, I continue, taking another drag, then the reflection is not true, and you start to believe that you are this bad reflection. When I look in Courtney's eyes, I see a crazy, overbearing woman, with unbearable good fortune, who is trying to ruin him. I pause. I love him, but he hates me, that is what I see. I will have to tell Courtney to leave. I can't live with him anymore.”

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“Every woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive favour in the long term. We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people; rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people. After all, half those new people we go on to create are also women - presumably themselves to be judged, in their futures, for not making new people. And so it will go on and on...”

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“However, what I do believe to genuinely sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. It's those unhappy, unwanted children, who then grew into angry adults, who have caused the great majority of humankind's miseries. They are the ones who make states feel feral; streets dangerous; relationships violent.”

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“We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”

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“Ladies, we are at a massive disadvantage in the workplace. Your male peers are flirting with their male bosses constantly. The average workplace is like f*cking Bromancing the Stone. That’s basically what male bonding is. Flirting. They’re flirting with each other playing golf, they’re flirting with each other going to the football, they’re flirting with each other chatting at the urinals – and, sadly, flirting with each other in after-hours visits to strip clubs and pubs. They are bonding with each other over their biological similarities. If the only way you can bond with them is over your biological differences, you go for it. Feel pressurised to actually f*ck them if you do? Then don’t flirt. Find it an easy way to just crack on? Then crack on – and don’t blame other women for doing it.”

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“I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge, when times is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment, whether or not some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously, it’s not 100% infallible but by and large it definitely points you in the right direction and it's asking this question; are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it's letting the side down? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating retarded, time-wasting, bullshit? Is this making Jeremy Clarkson feel insecure? Almost always the answer is no. The boys are not being told they have to be a certain way, they are just getting on with stuff.”

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“Because the purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right “types” of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long — this belief that “we” wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that hire cleaners, birds that stay at home with their kids, birds that have pink Mini Metros with POWERED BY FAIRY DUST! bumper stickers, birds in burkas or birds that like to pretend, in their heads, that they’re married to Zach Braff from Scrubs and that you sometimes have sex in an ambulance while the rest of the cast watch and, latterly, clap. You know what? Feminism will have all of you. What 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.”

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“Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers, and that's why it's come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions. It's a way of fucking yourself up while still remaining fully functional, because you have to. Fat people aren't indulging in the "luxury" of their addiction making them useless, chaotic, or a burden. Instead, they are slowly self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone. And that's why it's so often a woman's addiction of choice. All the quietly eating mums. All the KitKats in office drawers. All the unhappy moments, late at night, caught only in the fridge light.”

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“At its best fashion is a game. But for women it's a compulsory game, like net ball, and you can't get out of it by faking your period. I know I have tried. And so for a woman every outfit is a hopeful spell, cast to influence the outcome of the day. An act of trying to predict your fate, like looking at your horoscope. No wonder there are so many fashion magazines. No wonder the fashion industry is worth an estimated 900 billion dollars a year. No wonder every woman's first thought is, for nearly every event in her life, be it work, snow or birth. The semi-despairing cry of "but what will I wear?" Because when a woman says I have nothing to wear, what she really means is there is nothing here for who I am supposed to be today.”

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“Sólo cuando la mayoría de los habitantes de este planeta estén convencidos de que se están muriendo, cada minuto que pasa, empezaremos a comportarnos como seres conscientes, racionales y compasivos. Porque, aunque el atractivo de «ser bueno» sea grande, el terror de caer, imparablemente, en la nada absoluta es mucho más efectivo.”

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“Porque esta exigencia de que todas las mujeres tengan hijos no tiene la menor lógica. Si te detienes a pensar un momento cómo está el mundo, te das cuenta de que están naciendo un montón de niños: el planeta no necesita realmente que todas traigamos más niños. Especialmente bebés del Primer Mundo, con su feroz consumo de petróleo, bosques y agua, y eructando sin parar emisiones de carbono y basuras. Los niños del Primer Mundo se están comiendo el planeta como termitas.”

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“Porque el hecho de que una pareja heterosexual contrate a una señora de la limpieza se considera una traición al feminismo es algo que no tiene ni pies ni cabeza, a no ser que estés convencido de que llevar una casa es de alguna manera: a) una obligación ineludible de las mujeres, que además b) se hace siempre únicamente por amor, nunca por dinero, porque eso "estropea" en cierto modo la magia del hogar. Como si los platos supieran que los ha lavado la persona contratada, en vez del ama de casa, y se sientan "tristísimos".”

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“A lo largo de los siglos, se pueden leer historias de mujeres que, contra todo pronóstico, llegaron a ser mujeres de verdad, pero que acabaron transgrediendo. siendo infelices, viendo coartada su libertad o simplemente destruidas porque a su alrededor la sociedad seguía equivocada. Si muestras a cualquier joven una de nuestras heroicas pioneras -Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Juana de Arco-, le estarás mostrando casi siempre a una mujer que acabó aplastada. Los triunfos ganados con mucho esfuerzo pueden verse invalidados si vives en un ambiente donde tus victorias se consideran una amenaza, un error, algo de mal gusto o -lo más crucial para una adolescente- que sencillamente no está en onda. Pocas chicas elegirán hacer lo que está bien -lo que está bien en el fondo de su ser inteligente y hermoso- a costa de quedarse solas.”

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“El feminismo tradicional dirá que estos temas no son los importantes, que debemos centrarnos en lo fundamental: la desigualdad salarial, la ablación femenina en el Tercer Mundo y la violencia de género. Y es obvio que éstos son asuntos urgentes, vergonzosos e injustos, y que el mundo no podrá ir con la frente alta hasta que se solucionen. Pero todos esos otros problemas más pequeños, estúpidos y cotidianos son, en muchos sentidos, igual de nocivos para la tranquilidad espiritual de las mujeres. Es la filosofía de la «Ventana Rota» aplicada a la desigualdad femenina. En la teoría de la «Ventana Rota», basta dejar una ventana rota sin reparar en un edificio vacío para que los más vándalos empiecen a romper las demás. Al final se colarán en el edificio, y encenderán fogatas o se convertirán en okupas. De la misma manera, si vivimos en un ambiente donde se considera desagradable el vello púbico femenino, o se ridiculiza constantemente a las mujeres famosas o poderosas por estar demasiado gordas o demasiado flacas, o por ir mal vestidas, la gente empezará a colarse en el interior de las mujeres y encenderá fogatas allí. Las mujeres tendrán okupas. Francamente, no es una situación nada agradable. No me gustaría despertarme una mañana y encontrar a un montón de oportunistas en mi vestíbulo.”

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“But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really still isn't up! I don't have time to work out if I am a women's libber! There seems to be a lot to it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?' I understand. So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your pants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist.”

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