Quotes on Feminism

Is there no way out of the mind?

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.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Young feminists have been sold a bill of goods about American feminism. The enormous changes in women over the past 40 years are constantly and falsely attributed to the organized women's movement of the late 1960s and '70s.

There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people, without a plan, could speak a spontaneous, unexpected truth, because revelation rules. Telling words recur in this smart, generous conversation between Stephen Andrews and Gregg Bordowitz: patience, responsibility, feminism, ethics, cosmology, AIDS, gift, freedom, mortality.

After feminism, I suddenly realised: not everyone has to live the same way. Imagine that!

There's been the same kind of demonizing of the word 'feminism' as words like 'liberal,' 'affirmative action,' and so on.

Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms. It's not about man-hating. It's not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years.

Today the two hundred million men in our country are entering into a civilized new world...but we, the two hundred million women, are still kept down in the dungeon.

While women were powerfully liberated both externally as well as internally by the feminism of the 1970s, we made some serious mistakes as well.

One's enemies are always talking about 'post-feminism.' It is a word invented by people who would like to do away with feminism.

Feminism began to dawn on my brain belatedly in life.

The thing that I would say you get the most hate about on social media, in my experience, is if you tweet anything about women's rights or feminism. It blows my mind. But it's the thought of not being a feminist that actually blows my mind.

For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself no longer needed.

Contrary to myth, 'The Feminine Mystique' and feminism did not represent the beginning of the decline of the stay-at-home mother but a turning point that led to much stronger legal rights and 'working conditions' for her.

Feminism is, I hope, a way to a better future for everyone who inhabits this world. Feminism should not be something that needs a seductive marketing campaign. The idea of women moving through the world as freely as men should sell itself.

Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. And the cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history. Part of the problem before the Internet was that we didn't know which books to read. Someone had to tell you.

I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.