#feminism

Militant feminists are pro‐choice because it’s their ultimate avenue of power over men. And believe me, to them it is a question of power. It is their attempt to impose their will on the rest of society, particularly on men. ↗

— Rush Limbaugh

#feminism #ignorant #men

But never fear, gentlemen; castration was really not the point of feminism, and we women are too busy eviscerating one another to take you on. ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#business

She was an extraordinary person too! Would you believe it, she cut her hair short, and used to go about in men’s boots in bad weather ↗

— Henrik Ibsen

#non-conformity #unique #woman #men

I’ve read Hamlet, I know men suffer. ↗

— Andrea Dworkin

#men

All men should be feminists. If men care about women’s rights the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered – it leads to a better society. ↗

— John Legend

#human-rights #patriarchy #women #men

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#child-abuse #children #feminism #hell #religion

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. ↗

— Rebecca West

#been #call #differentiate #doormat #express

For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#enemy

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that's me. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#woman

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking. ↗

— Audre Lorde

#revolution #silence #speaking-out #truth #change