Naomi Wolf Quotes

The West believes the East, deep down, wants to be dominated, because a woman can’t think for herself

I like the strings. I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is, I think. We're not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me to imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well – but never quite perfectly, you know?

Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual; they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today.

The training of a Mord-Sith takes years - to learn to handle the pain. I guess it's also why only women are Mord-Sith, men are too weak.

I think the idea that feminism is dead is dangerous because it leads women and men to believe that (1) they don't have to do anything; the work has been done, and that everything is okay now; and (2) it leaves them kind of alone, I think, in a struggle, and that's something I've seen a lot when I go to colleges and I speak to young women.

Marriage is made out to be so important for girls but the focus has to shift at some point from marriage to the real challenges of life which are the same for women and men, so we have to prepare our girls just the way we prepare our boys.

The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons...and we all found that hard to believe.

The patriarchal society has made women believe, first of all, you're only valid and valuable when you're young.

In real life these women experienced different sides of the same sexism coin. People who didn't like Hillary called her a ballbuster. People who didn't like Sarah called her Caribou Barbie. People attempted to marginalize these women based on their gender.

I have often thought how strange it is that men can at once and the same moment cheerfully consign our sex to lives either of narrowest toil or senseless luxury and vanity, and then sneer at the smallness of our aims, the pettiness of our thoughts, the puerility of our conversation!

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'.

It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.

Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real.

I can't believe this, I'm arguing with a woman!

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

All the decent people, male and female, are feminists. The only people who are not feminists are those who believe that women are inherently inferior or undeserving of the respect and opportunity afforded men. Either you are a feminist or you are a misogynist. There is no box marked "other."

It is sometimes better to be a dead man than a live woman.

All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But... I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.

I believe, firmly, that women are always right. Ah, I should actually rephrase that: I... don't.

Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air, or even a bit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable, never-ending struggle.

I don't need more pain in my life. Why did I invite it in? Do I have to feel pain to believe I feel anything at all?

I know [my breasts] have opened doors for me, let’s be real.

Ten minutes? That's the women. It's not for the men; not for the real game, mate.

Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying

Feminism as a movement for political and social equity is important, but feminism as an academic clique committed to eccentric doctrines about human nature is not. Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not. Freedom of choice is important, but ensuring that women make up exactly 50 percent of all professions is not. And eliminating sexual assaults is important, but advancing the theory that rapists are doing their part in a vast male conspiracy is not.