Roxane Gay Quotes

Women are feminist by default.

I would [call myself a feminist], yes. I believe in the unadulterated advancement of women. And we have so far to go still. I do think because women are so clever and flexible and such good communicators, it been hard for men to evolve and keep up. I think we could do a little better to help them out.

When I talk to girls, they go, 'I'm not a feminist.' And I say: 'What? You don't want to vote? Do you want to be owned by your husband? Do you want your money from your job to go into his bank account? If you were raped, do you still want that to be a crime? Congratulations : you are a feminist.'

I feel sad that we have allowed these knee-jerk feminists who want to act like it's a struggle against men...but again that's the least politically developed strand of feminism.

I consider myself to be a feminist. My hope and goal is that I'm going to raise two very strong independent women that won't need anybody, unless they chose that. I want them to be mistresses of their own destiny. But I don't judge people on the other end of that spectrum either.

I have been told that I am a "natural" feminist, someone who was born a feminist. In fact I was quite blind to what the problem was: I couldn't understand why anyone would hesitate to do what they wanted to do just because they were told that women didn't do such things.

I consider myself a feminist, in a way.

I'm a poster child for feminism whether I like it or not, but I was resistant to the part of me that was a woman.

My mother was a feminist, and she gave me some tools of self-possession and self-empowerment, but now that I have lived here for forty-three years, it's, like, whoa, there is just so much more to do, other than become myself. I'm still talking about it. I still drop the P-word, "patriarchy," on unsuspecting people in everyday conversations.

I remember getting to college and all of a sudden realizing that feminism was a dirty word to a lot of people and it was baffling to me. I would tell people that I was a feminist and they would look at me and go, "Why?" And that just made me feel more at home in those shoes.

I was always a feminist. My mother was a feminist; my grandmother was a feminist. I always understood women had to fight very hard to do what they wanted to do in the world - that it wasn't an easy choice. But I think the most important part is that we all want the right to be taken seriously as human beings, and to use our talents without reservation, and that's still not possible for women.

Whenever a woman describes herself as a 'post-feminist' I picture women lashed to posts. Joan of Arc was an early post-feminist.

What feminism sought to do, when you get right down to it feminism was brought to us by a bunch of angry women whose major grievance and beef was with human nature and God. And they sought to reverse, undo, change, whatever, basic human nature, things that we're born with.

The work is what it is and hopefully it's seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I'm not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.

Feminism has had exactly the same problem that "political correctness" has had: people keep using the phrase without really knowing what it means.

What I often say to people who are quick to say I’m not a feminist is if you think you’re not a feminist, give it all back.

I think people resist feminism because they're scared. I think for women, they're scared of being picked on or of being called out.

But never fear, gentlemen; castration was really not the point of feminism, and we women are too busy eviscerating one another to take you on.

I feel bad that people think that "feminism" is a dirty word. I don't understand that at all, I'm proud to be labeled a feminist. I consider myself a person who has throughout my entire life stood up for myself. It's never been my ambition to be someone who takes a backseat to anything. I'm not a male basher at all. I divide people into assholes and non-assholes, and that's genderless. I encounter sexism everyday.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I am a feminist, that can come off as a negative connotation. But I am a strong female.

I feel like there's this weird thing that as a feminist band you get put in this role as ambassadors.

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's about labeling. For me feminism is bra-burning lesbianism. It's very unglamorous. I'd like to see it rebranded. We need to see a celebration of our femininity and softness.

Much of the appeal of feminism is that it encourages women to do what they always felt like doing anyway: take everything personally. But to succeed at the highest level, you need some objectivity, which feminism hates. Feminists see objective reality as a conspiracy out to make them feel bad about themselves.

I think there are many feminists who would say that I am not a feminist. I love women, I have a lot of girlfriends, I admire them, they make so much more sense to me than men, and I feel like the world is a better place when women are in charge. So that kind of by default makes me a feminist. I love working in a female world.