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Feminism Quotes

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Feminism Quotes

“Are we to deny our daughters the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck or Shakespeare?....Where is the equality in banning girls from enjoying wonderful works of literature?....What kind of society defines suitable reading material by sex? This is indefensible censorship encouraging ignorance and bias. [About Caitlin Moran's statement.]”

LiteratureBoysFeminismBooksFeministGenderGirlsCensorshipAntifeminismAntifeministCaitlinmoran
Author:Diane Davies
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“Making God a man is the consolation prize that our forefathers gave themselves for not being the ones who were each blessed with a vagina.”

GodHumorGirlWomenFeminismHumourFemaleBlessedFeministEqualityGenderInequalityWomanCurseSatireGirlsBlessAncestorPatriarchyConsolationCursedGender EqualityConsoleAffirmative ActionForefathersAncestorsFemalesFeministsVaginaGlass CeilingMatriarchyGender GapWomen S DayConsolation PrizeInternational Women S DayVaginasForefather
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Be that kind of girl who smiles when you walk past other girls instead of casting a dirty look. Don't buy into the notion of female competition that society so heavily promotes.”

GirlWomenSocietyFeminismCompetitionSmileFeministEqualityGenderJealousyFriendlyGirlsCompetitivenessObjectificationFeministsWomen S IssuesSexual ObjectificationFemale CompetitionDirty Look
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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“Women in the public eye didn’t get the luxury of showing emotions; it branded them as temperamental, difficult to work with. Some men claimed to like it when women were angry—when they got emotional, even—but what they really liked was emotional impotence: half-baked emotions, not fully-formed, that expended themselves before they became inconvenient, most frequently after sex.”

EmotionFeminismEmotionsAngerGenderSexismShowing Emotion
Book:Little Deaths
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“In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz: (...) that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.”

WomenFeminismEmpowermentDignityIndividualityGenderDiscriminationSelf DeterminationMisogynyStereotypesSocial NormsClassificationDouble StandardsClichés
Book:Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
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“If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.”

WomenFeminismExpectationsEmpowermentGenderHypocrisyMisogynyStereotypesIllusionsDouble StandardsClichésMisconceptionsFalse Belief
Book:Shirley
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“When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.”

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Author:Arundhati Roy
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“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”

WomenFeminismMoralityEmpowermentDignityGenderReformMannersHypocrisyMisogynyStereotypesSocial NormsDouble StandardsClichés
Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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“Now, it is frequently asserted that, with women, the job does not come first. What (people cry) are women doing with this liberty of theirs? What woman really prefers a job to a home and family? Very few, I admit. It is unfortunate that they should so often have to make the choice. A man does not, as a rule, have to choose. He gets both. Nevertheless, there have been women ... who had the choice, and chose the job and made a success of it. And there have been and are many men who have sacrificed their careers for women ... When it comes to a choice, then every man or woman has to choose as an individual human being, and, like a human being, take the consequences.”

WomenFreedomFeminismEmpowermentGenderInequalityChoiceSelf DeterminationMisogynyCareerStereotypesDouble StandardsClichés
Book:Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
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“A lot of people think if they’re shouting the loudest, they’ll be heard, but most people lose respect for you when you lose your cool. You have to maintain everyone’s respect, especially as a woman in a position of power. It’s terrible to be at that kind of disadvantage, where if you yell, people will talk about you behind your back more than if you were a man. Because of those social injustices we face as women, you have to make sure that no one can call you a crazy bitch.”

WomenFeminismInjusticeGender
Author:Taylor Swift
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“My Lady, you certainly tell me about wonderful constancy, strength and virtue and firmness of women, so can one say the same thing about men? (...) Response [by Lady Rectitude]: "Fair sweet friend, have you not yet heard the saying that the fool sees well enough a small cut in the face of his neighbour, but he disregards the great gaping one above his own eye? I will show you the great contradiction in what the men say about the changeability and inconstancy of women. It is true that they all generally insist that women are very frail [= fickle] by nature. And since they accuse women of frailty, one would suppose that they themselves take care to maintain a reputation for constancy, or at the very least, that the women are indeed less so than they are themselves. And yet, it is obvious that they demand of women greater constancy than they themselves have, for they who claim to be of this strong and noble condition cannot refrain from a whole number of very great defects and sins, and not out of ignorance, either, but out of pure malice, knowing well how badly they are misbehaving. But all this they excuse in themselves and say that it is in the nature of man to sin, yet if it so happens that any women stray into any misdeed (of which they themselves are the cause by their great power and longhandedness), then it's suddenly all frailty and inconstancy, they claim. But it seems to me that since they do call women frail, they should not support that frailty, and not ascribe to them as a great crime what in themselves they merely consider a little defect.”

MenWomenSinVirtueFeminismMoralityEmpowermentPrejudiceGenderInequalityHypocrisyMisogynySlanderStereotypesStrength Of CharacterFrailtyConstancySocial NormsPreconceptionsFirmnessDouble StandardsViceClichés
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.”

MenWomenFeminismSelf EsteemDignityPrejudiceGenderWitHypocrisyMisogynyBeliefsSlanderStereotypesPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsClichésConvictionsReparteeSelf ImportanceAttacks
Book:Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose
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“[S]ince you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man who, by great labour and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French. When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have put your time and intellect to better use!" My answer: Oh man deceived by willful opinion! I could assuredly answer but I prefer not to do it with insult, although, groundlessly, you yourself slander me with ugly accusations. Oh darkened understanding! Oh perverted knowledge ... A simple little housewife sustained by the doctrine of Holy Church could criticise your error!”

MenWomenFeminismSelf EsteemDignityPrejudiceGenderWitHypocrisyMisogynyBeliefsSlanderStereotypesPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsClichésConvictionsReparteeSelf ImportanceAttacks
Book:Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose
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“[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behaviour. Not only one or two ... but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators – it would take too long to mention their names – it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realise how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behaviour and character of women.”

MenCharacterWomenFeminismBooksMoralityExpectationsEmpowermentPrejudiceGenderInequalityHypocrisyBehaviourMisogynySlanderStereotypesSocial NormsReality CheckPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsConductImpartialityClichés
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“Let's think a little about why, after so many centuries, never ahs a good tragedy, a good poem, a respected history, a good painting, a good book on physical science come from the hands of women? Why should these creatures, whose understanding seems so completely similar to men, seem however to be kept behind the barrier by an invincible power? Tell me if you can.”

ScienceWomenFeminismPrejudiceEqualityGender
Book:Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works
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“I won’t play the game—I don’t bake cupcakes and make cooing noises over pictures of everyone’s kids. If a man doesn’t bake cupcakes and make cooing noises, you know what they call him? Senior Partner. Ben hasn’t made cupcakes once. But men expect you to be more thoughtful than they are—softer, more accommodating. And when you are paid less than your peers, or assaulted on a date, or lose a promotion, they’ll tell you it was your fault—you were too soft, too accommodating.”

MenSexWomenWorkFeminismFemaleFeministGenderSexismWorkplace
Book:The Devil You Know
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“Dear Men Everywhere, Please don't think that being a feminist means we hate you or don't need you. -We absolutely love you and couldn't live without you! ...We are just on a mission to be treated equally and with respect. No hard feelings. With love, Feminists of the World xoxoox P.S. Yes we do shave our legs!”

MenLoveBeautySocietyFeminismRespectMen And WomenFeministEqualityGenderSexualitySexismMissionEqual RightsEmpowering WomenFeminist QuotesSexistSocial ActivismMiya Yamanouchi
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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“Guys, you don't have to act "manly" to be considered a man; you are a man, so just be yourself. Don't let society make you believe you have to prove your masculinity to anyone because you don't. You are you and you are worthy, full stop.”

MenBoysSocietyFeminismFeministGenderWorthySelf WorthManFeminineMasculinityMasculineManlyGender RolesWorthinessMaleGender StereotypesSocial ExpectationsMan EnoughGender PolicingGender Expectations
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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“A man's level of "toughness" (as assessed by other men), will determine whether or not his girlfriend will get hit on by other guys right in front of him in public places. If you're deemed a "p*#%y" by other guys and they want your girlfriend, even in your company she'll be considered "fair game".”

MenGuyBoysFeminismToughFeministEqualityGenderManGirlfriendSexismMasculinityMasculineAlpha MaleSexistTough GuyGuysFair GamePick UpHit OnTough Guy TalkPicking Up The LadiesPicking Up
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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“For many of us, feminism denotes the task of abolishing all organized scarcities, from the private nuclear household to the nation. It’s the deprivatization of love, via the insurgency of mothers of every gender against the patriarchal institution of motherhood, the decoupling of survival from the wage, the destruction of markets, the ecological insistence on interspecies responsibility, the decarbonization of every mégapole, and the communization of continent-wide architecture: waterways, seed banks, and libraries. It’s a local proletarian strike against work (that always already gendered and stolen substance otherwise called alienated labor) and a planetary revolution in values that prioritizes care over accumulation. It’s a perfectly good name, too, for the horizon wherein work’s myriad precarious, abject, wageless, mad, incarcerated, and otherwise remaindered victims are avenged. As a revolutionary movement, feminism abolishes gender qua differential, while remaking genders qua lush, interesting, and pleasurable difference.”

CareWorkFeminismRevolutionLaborGenderMotherhoodAbolitionPrison AbolitionFamily Abolition
Book:Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation
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“What feminists refer to as microaggressions, the rest of us sane adults call life....The concept of microaggressions encourages women to think that every single thing in the world is, or should be, about them. It encourages breathless levels of narcissism, solipsism and just plain delusion....Feminism encourages women to believe that they have the same reasoning and coping abilities as toddlers. No thanks.”

LifeInspirationalWomenFeminismStrengthLogicGenderWomanReasoningAnti Feminism
Author:Janet Bloomfield
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“The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”

FeminismScience FictionHumanismGenderLeftism
Book:The Left Hand of Darkness
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“O woman, father says natural is beautiful so why do you redden your cheeks and blacken your eyes? Why do you remove the hair on your legs and draw them into your brows? Why do you hold your breath lest your stomach show and hold your fart lest they know that you’re a human? O woman, father says natural is beautiful so why do you straighten your hair to curl it next and pretend to orgasm so they think you enjoyed the sex? Why do you dumb yourself down and push your breasts up? Why do you smile when you’re told to and love when you don’t want to? When? When will you stop, woman? Father says natural is beautiful but that is doubtful for what does father know he’s only a fellow.”

MenLoveHumorFunnyBeautifulFatherSexWomenNatureNaturalInterestingBeautyDoubtFeminismHumourHairPoemQuoteSmileFeministLegsGenderVanityDumbManWomanVainFakeBreastsStomachEyesSuperficialActKamandKojouriKamand KojouriBrowsBreathDoubtfulFartPretendOrgasmFunny QuoteFunny PoemCheekFellowReddenBlackenFeminism PoemCurlStraighten
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“Misogyny was born of fear of women. It spawned the ideology of male superiority. But this was ideology, not statement of fact; as such, it could not be confirmed, but was open to constant doubt. Male status was not immutable. Myths of matriarchies and Amazons societies showed female dominance. Three of the eleven extant comedies of Aristophanes show women in successful opposition to men. ... These were the nightmares of victors: that someday the vanquished would arise and treat their ex-masters as they themselves had been treated.”

MenWomenFeminismGenderGender RolesAncient GreeceWomen S Studies
Author:Sarah B. Ponderous
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“You said, "males are in charge." Males are in charge? No. The people who are in charge are male. But that does not mean males are in charge. You see the difference? I'm not in charge. You're not in charge. We're males, do we go to our Secret Male Meetings where we start figuring out the fate of the fucking world? Do we get to figure this out, do we share power, everyone with a penis gets a say, everyone with a vagina, they're just left out? There was a time when the world was like that, and that was a horrible time, fuck that time. But that time is not now.”

MenFeminismGender
Author:T.J. Kirk
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“This is a woman who didn’t want her viewpoints challenged, nor to see the views of the half of the world that comprises men. Her assumption is that all male authors are sexist and that their books distort the views of women....that’s bigoted and despicable: the form of feminism that sees men as the enemy from the outset, and seeks to reinforce that prejudice by reading only books that keep her in her safe space.....The future, in both life and books, is men and women together, with a mutual understanding that can come only from learning about each other’s thoughts. [About Caitlin Moran's sexist statement that girls shouldn't read any books written by men.]”

MenReadingLiteratureWomenFeminismBooksFeministGenderLiberalismSexismSexistLiberalsAnti FeministMisandryAnti FeminismAntifeminismCaitlinmoranThefutureisnotfemale
Author:Jerry Coyne
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“Another example was relentlessly expressed during Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, and especially since her defeat: the assertion that she was the victim of misogynistic comments and that she lost because she was a woman. None of it is true. But it keeps feminists thinking of women as victims — and people who think of themselves as victims are rendered weak....Modern feminists are afraid of life. They are afraid of differences of opinion, and especially afraid of men.....Feminists are outraged and unduly stressed by much of life itself.”

MenLifeWomenFeminismVictimGenderToleranceOpinionsAntifeminismAntifeministIdentitypoliticsVictimmentalityVictimattitude
Author:Dennis Prager
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“Whether they regard themselves as pro- or antifeminist, most women want men to do more of the emotional work in relationships. And most men, even those who wholeheartedly support gender equality in the workforce, still believe that emotional work is female labor. Most men continue to uphold the sexist decree that emotions have no place in the work world and that emotional labor at home should be done by females.”

MenFeelingsWorkFeminismEmotionsFeministGenderWorking TogetherSexismWork EthicMasculinityFemininityGender EqualityGender RolesSexistGender StereotypesGender Differences
Author:Bell Hooks
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“Both men and women experience pressure to conform to social standards of attractiveness. Men to look strong and be tough, women to look pretty and soft. Men to be masculine, women to be feminine. Men get judged for being "too feminine", women get criticized for being "too masculine". Gender policing affects us all.”

MenSocietyFeminismToughPressureFeministGenderSexualityFeminineMasculinityMasculineSocial IssuesManlySocial NormsGender StereotypesSoftGender NormsGender IssuesMan EnoughGender PolicingGenre PolicingPrett
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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