A. S. Byatt Quotes

Everything about women is in perpetual crisis.

I do not subscribe to a feminism that demands perfection or super heroic nobility of women. But I do insist that putting women at the service of patriarchy is no victory for us.

A woman's desire is either terrifying, or it's ignored.

Women have two choices: Either she's a feminist or a masochist.

How insulting is it to suggest the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things?

'Power' is an explosive word, particularly when applied to women.

The message of women's liberation is that women can love each other and ourselves against our degrading education.

I'll always prefer to play with women and hang out with women, and I'll always be a feminist.

Women are not pals enough with men, so we must make ourselves indispensable. After all, we have the greatest weapon in our hands by just being women.

Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.

The women's movement hasn't changed my sex life. It wouldn't dare.

Whenever a female takes a strong stand for herself, the majority of the time they have to really, really narrow it down to being feminine and wearing dresses and just being lipstick chic.

The feminists who are aware of the effects of patriarchy realize that we are all in the same boat from the dangers of patriarchy, and that the oppression of women is universal.

It's a little bit late in the day for men to object that women are getting outside their proper sphere.

Emancipation of women has made them lose their mystery.

There's nothing wrong at all with women wanting to be women.

I mean, women are very important to me. I don't know, they just drive me crazy.

I don't see women and think of them as competition or with judgment. Women really move me. I feel connected to all kinds of women. I am angry because I think we've been mistreated throughout history in different countries, including America. I admire women.

I wouldn't say I'm a feminist, but I don't like girls pretending to be stupid because it's easier.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

We are tired of having a 'sphere' doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is 'unwomanly'. We want to be natural just for a change … we must be ourselves at all risks.

The veil is the mask of Egyptian women in a power struggle against the dictatorship of men…. The veil gives women more power in a man’s world.

You—the outside world—will be told that it is our “culture” and “religion” to do X, Y, and Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman.

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.