#feminism

The world moves on so fast, and we lose all chance of being the women our mothers were; we lose all understanding of what shaped them. ↗

— Hilary Mantel

#experience

Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality. ↗

— Iris Marion Young

#breastfeeding #breasts #children #feminism #motherhood

We have gone on too long blaming or pitying the mothers who devour their children, who sow the seeds of progressive dehumanization, because they have never grown to full humanity themselves. If the mother is at fault, why isn't it time to break the pattern by urging all these Sleeping Beauties to grow up and live their own lives? There never will be enough Prince Charmings or enough therapists to break that pattern now. It is society's job, and finally that of each woman alone. For it is not the strength of the mothers that is at fault but their weakness, their passive childlike dependency and immaturity that is mistaken for "femininity." Our society forces boys, insofar as it can, to grow up, to endure the pains of growth, to educate themselves to work, to move on. Why aren't girls forced to grow up - to achieve somehow the core of self that will end the unnecessary dilemma, the mistaken choice between femaleness and humanness that is implied in the feminine mystique? ↗

— Betty Friedan

#gender-stereotypes #beauty

Women who got married got screwed. ↗

— Kaya McLaren

#marriage #women #marriage

Society will not crumble if men take a turn at the dishes. ↗

— Linda P. Rouse

#men

If a woman enjoyed sex, or expressed her sexuality outwardly she was automatically a slut with no respect for herself. Sex was a favor you allowed your husband so angels wouldn't curse you until morning. ↗

— Michael Muhammad Knight

#islam #slut-shaming #respect

Leaning her silly, beautiful, drunken head on my shoulder, she said, "Oh, Esther, I don't want to be a feminist. I don't enjoy it. It's no fun." "I know," I said. "I don't either." People think you decide to be a "radical," for God's sake, like deciding to be a librarian or a ship's chandler. You "make up your mind," you "commit yourself" (sounds like a mental hospital, doesn't it?). I said Don't worry, we could be buried together and have engraved on our tombstone the awful truth, which some day somebody will understand: WE WUZ PUSHED. ↗

— Joanna Russ

#joanna-russ #pure-awesome #beauty

Feminism - the word - can give us a handle, a rallying point, a common ground, and help us build a bridge. Why not claim the gift of the word as a place to begin? ↗

— Betty Buckley

#bridge #build #claim #common #common ground

Conservatives, who have presumed that the key to preventing AIDS is abstinence-only education, and liberals, who have focused on distribution of condoms, should both note that the intervention that has tested most cost-effective in Africa is neither... Secular bleeding hearts and religious bleeding hearts will have to forge a common cause. ↗

— Nicholas D. Kristof

#feminism #philanthropy #politics #science #women-s-issues

My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. ↗

— Ani DiFranco

#every #feminism #herself #idea #needs