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.
Caitlin MoranRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the struggles and societal challenges faced by women throughout history, despite their achievements.
Caitlin Moran's quote emphasizes the paradoxical nature of women's achievements in history, pointing out that while many women have been pioneering figures, their successes often came at great personal cost due to societal limitations and prejudices. It suggests that the stories of these women are not just tales of triumph but also cautionary narratives of how society's wrongs can lead to the ruin of even the most remarkable individuals.
Themes
WomenHistorySocietyStruggleHeroes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about female empowerment, this quote can highlight the challenges women face.
More from Caitlin Moran
All quotes →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.
Caitlin MoranRead
People get really scared when women reclaim words, talk about themselves honestly and also make jokes because it's a really unstoppable combination.
Caitlin MoranRead
If every woman who's had an abortion took tomorrow off in protest, America would grind to a halt. And that would be symbolic: because women grind to a halt if they are not in control of their fertility.
Caitlin MoranRead
I don't think there should be anything that women are embarrassed to talk about in the 21st century, because for the last 100,000 years, men have said everything that's on their minds and described everything they have done.
Caitlin MoranRead
A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead.
Caitlin MoranRead
Similar quotes
A woman can be beautiful as well as intellectual.
Audrey HepburnRead
There were not a lot of women in the theater department - it was really run by men, and so the message was that women can be onstage, but women can't really be backstage.
Lynn NottageRead
We teach girls shame; close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though by being born female they're already guilty of something.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieRead
When God created man and woman, he was thinking, 'Who shall I give the power to, to give birth to the next human being?' And God chose woman. And this is the big evidence that women are powerful.
Malala YousafzaiRead
In Saudi Arabia, they always tell us we are queens. We are pistachios. You know the nut? Like something that is protected. So even if you have a very good education, restraints are put on women.
Manal Al-SharifRead
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
Betty FriedanRead