#feminism

One of the greatest gifts of Black feminism to ourselves has been to make it a little easier simply to be Black and female. ↗

— Barbara Smith

#black #easier #female #feminism #gifts

When it comes to current attitudes about surgery, the practice of dismissing the cultural context and rationalizing it as individual betterment "flattens the terrain of power relations." In other words, we can talk about doing it for us until our high-end lipstick flakes off, but we should also keep in mind that we probably wouldn't even be thinking about what life would be like with a new nose or perkier breasts or shapelier inner thighs if it weren't for a long-standing cultural ideal that rewards those who adhere to it with power that often doesn't speak its name, but is instantly recognizable to those who don't have it. ↗

— Andi Zeisler

#choices #expectations #feminism #plastic-surgery #attitude

Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#aging #beauty #body-image #cosmetic-surgery #cosmetics

It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life. ↗

— Stacy Schiff

#beauty

Love is not getting high on fantasies of romance, the perfect lover, absolute happiness and sexual ecstasy. Love is based on a two way communication and respect, and that only exists between equals. ↗

— Anselma Dell'Olio

#feminism #gender-equality #love #communication

My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow their heads and become concubines. ↗

— Trieu Thi Choi

#feminism #sharks #courage

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#dignity #double-standards #empowerment #encroachment #feminism

Oh! What honour for the female sex! It is perfectly obvious that God has special regard for it when all these wretched people who destroyed the whole Kingdom – now recovered and made safe by a woman, something that 5000 men could not have done – and the traitors [have been] exterminated. Before the event they would scarcely have believed this possible. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#empowerment #feminism #freedom #gender #joan-of-arc

You have some balls." Frankie hated that expression, ever since Zada had pointed out to her that it equates courage with the male equipment... ↗

— E. Lockhart

#humor #inspirational #courage

For underlying all is our struggle with gender. Woman hatred is fear of her who has the power of birthing, for with birth, comes death, and fear of death is hatred of life. ↗

— Joan Dobbie

#death