Germaine Greer Quotes

I grew up in a world where authority was female. I never thought to call myself a feminist because of branding. I had this skewed idea of feminist: I thought it meant being a woman who hates men. When I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists, I was like, "Oh, this is what my mom taught me. This is simple. I don't understand why everybody is not this."

I am a feminist. I reject wholeheartedly the way we are taught to perceive women. The beauty of women, how a woman should act or behave. Women are strong and fragile. Women are beautiful and ugly. We are soft-spoken and loud, all at once. There is something mind-controlling about the way we're taught to view women.

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.

I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist.

When men realize that feminism is a universal good that affects them in very intimate ways then I think they really become allies and leaders.

We must not allow ourselves to be deflected by the feminists who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth.

'The Truth About Lorin Jones' will undoubtedly shock and offend as many readers as it will amuse, since it dares to make fun of feminism - of its manners, if not its politics.

This is our historical task … To make evident that the category “woman” as well as the category “man” are political and economic categories and not eternal ones. Our aim is to suppress men as a class, not through a genocidal, but a political struggle. Once the class “man” disappears, “woman” as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters.

We, all of us, are awakening to the reality that how men have behaved toward women for eons is not OK. The rules are changing invisibly underneath our feet. I am playing catch up. Maybe we all are.

I hate the word 'feminine!' I mean, there is a woman and a man, and when I say 'woman,' it suggests all that is radiant, tender, fascinating, gentle, demoniac, exaggerated! 'Feminine' makes me think of somebody who is spindly and over-sweet - I don't like that!

My own belief is all men should be feminists, and with enthusiasm.

Men can be feminists.

I want the kind of feminism that allows me to have a voice and to compete on equal terms with men yet still, potentially, to have one of them hurl me over their shoulder and carry me off somewhere, because I still find proper, old-fashioned masculinity deeply attractive.

Feminist humor raises consciousness. And the reason it's funny is because it stands something on its head. Goodness knows you've got to have a sense of humor if you do feminism full-time, I tell you.

Power feminism is just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us.

Before feminism, work was largely defined as what men did or would do. Thus, a working woman was someone who labored outside the home for money, masculine-style.

A woman can do anything. She can be traditionally feminine and that's all right; she can work, she can stay at home; she can be aggressive; she can be passive; she can be any way she wants with a man. But whenever there are the kinds of choices there are today, unless you have some solid base, life can be frightening.

I definitely can feel the third or fourth feminist wave in the air, so maybe this is a good time to open that Pandora’s box a little bit and air it out.

I've always said I have nothing against a woman doing anything a man can do as long as she gets home in time to cook dinner.

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.

How did it come to be that you think men and women are the same? Well, there's a simple answer to the question: Feminism.

So often feminism is built up as this thing where you have to be perfect. You have to be consistent and you can't ever deviate. That's just not realistic.

All women are feminists, whether they know it or not.

My grandfather was the first feminist in my life. He taught me if a woman can do something, a man will respect her.