Naomi Alderman Quotes

I write for women because it's the only way I can use what I've experienced. It's good that people like what I write, but I don't want to go down the feminist path.

I think I started writing about identity, and I used to believe that identity is the story. But now I'm not so much subscribed to that. I mean, with 'Mr. Fox,' it has a feminist agenda as well. And so, as I sort of been away from writing about identity, I still feel that kind of tug of roots and, you know, cultural background.

I would say that I'm a feminist theorist before I'm a queer theorist or a gay and lesbian theorist.

How do you rebel in a family of rebels?

At Murry Bergtraum High I wanted to be as different from my father as possible. So I acted out in school, I was very anti-authority.

Since I was a young girl in the punk scene, almost all of my friends have been gay or lesbian, so for me, it's an obvious answer when it comes to whether or not gay people should be recognized as equal.

Men should look at the world as if something is wrong when their voices predominate. They should feel it.

I grew up and had a lot of friends who were gay and Mormon. They couldn't come out to their parents. They couldn't even come out to me because we just wouldn't talk about it.

I wore the hijab - a form of dress that comprises a head scarf and usually also clothing that covers the whole body except for the face and hands - for nine years. Put more honestly, I wore the hijab for nine years and spent eight of them trying to take it off.

I've always felt I've related to women deeply because of being gay and feeling like there was always somebody trying to oppress me, to keep me down, to put me in my place.

I think many of the ideas that opened up in the '60s got implemented in the '70s and that certain minority voices that were not being heard in the '60s, like women and gay people, were being heard in the '70s. Black Civil Rights had also found its foothold, and those ideas were also very pertinent.

Vera Caspary wrote an essay called 'My 'Laura' and Otto's' where she talks about the arguments she had with Preminger. She felt that not only did he misunderstand the character but that he couldn't help but be misogynist.

Coming out of the closet doesn't always mean liberation.

But I think as you grow up, you realise that actually, if you want to dress sexy there's nothing wrong with that - it's your prerogative as a woman to dress however you want.

Civil rights and women's rights and gay rights all take time in this country.

Sometimes when I'm working with RuPaul, I can't even look at her without feeling so emotional about the process I went through, and what was before the competition and what happened in my life after, and what it's done to millions of gay disenfranchised freaky kids.

I was so terrified for so long about what people think about my sexuality, and I didn't wanna find myself in a position where I was losing my fans and couldn't do my job.

At the same time women are putting on the headscarf, they are also going to work, to education, increasingly vocal in the media - and this is the confusing thing about Muslim women in the West,. They are becoming Westernized at the same time as they are adopting their religious identity more strongly.

When I was younger, I didn't want to come to WWE because I didn't fit into the mold. I couldn't identify myself with the term 'diva.' The divas brand was meant to put a spotlight on the women, but the term, to me, felt more glamorous than me.

Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.

As I got more into gay rights, I got more into equal pay, and you just see that it's all connected. You can't really speak out on one thing and not another without it not being the full picture.

I don't get this shitty attitude that only gays should care about gay issues and only women should care about women's issues.

I think worldwide, the movement has been towards accepting and respecting the individuality and the rights of gay people, lesbians and transgender people. Here, however, age-old cultural mindsets - which also comes from Victorian times, affect the thinking of people.

I think in three or four years, there are going to be a whole lot more people who don’t think it’s necessary to figure out if you’re gay or straight. It’s like, just do your thing.