Jessica Valenti Quotes

I just see a lot of people who are really terrified of the "f-word." A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists.

I feel like a lot of artists these days are going out with being a feminist and making it cool, and being outspoken and letting it be mainstream, which is a great thing. I absolutely think it should be mainstream to be a feminist, it should be a no-brainer to speak up about stuff and have a voice.

I do consider myself a feminist. I know the word has weird implications for people now, but I do think that its important to have women involved, whether its business or public service or...anything.

All year there have been these cover stories that the women's movement is dead and about the death of feminism and the post-feminist generation of young women who don't identify with feminism - and then we have the biggest march ever of women in Washington. More people than had ever marched for anything - not only more women, but more people.

I do think that more people are feminists than they realize.

Young women now, this generation - girls my age too, but even younger than I am - they're the ones that are going to change the world. They've grown up in such a new way of thinking about women and female empowerment. I grew up with a little bit of that, but teenagers now, those are the girls that are going to make the world a different place for everyone else.

I think anyone who wants the social, political and economic equality for women can call themselves a feminist. It does get trickier, of course, when you see anti-woman politicians or pundits claiming the feminist label while working hard to dismantle feminist gains.

The young women in my classes are feisty and clever and believe, often with the passion of youthful optimism, that feminism is a battle already won. I worry for them - and for my daughters, too.

Feminism is very much a part of a lot of my student's lives, but they're not going to march about it or take a public political stance. And I think more and more young women are claiming that they're not feminists - even though they are.

A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists. You have this cheap, hideous 'girl power' sort of fad, which I think is pretty benign at best, but at worst, I think it's a way of taking the politics out of feminism and making it some kind of fashion.

The feminist movement is not about success for women. It is about treating women as victims and about telling women that you can't succeed because society is unfair to you, and I think that's a very unfortunate idea to put in the minds of young women because I believe women can do whatever they want.

I’m a bit of a feminist and I carry a machete! I try to be a strong female. I think it’s important. My mum is my idol in life. She’s a very strong woman. I think it’s important for women to be strong and intelligent and hold their own.

I’m very feminist in the way I look at the world, and that worldview must somehow be part of my work.

If you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist.

I'm a bit of a feminist and very "female empowerment," and women should be able to do what they please.

Whether people identify as feminists or not, if they're doing work that furthers a feminist cause, I think that's wonderful, like if it works for me, right, it works for the movement.

I was always a feminist, for I liked intellectual revolt as much as I disliked physical violence. On the whole, I think women havelost something precious, but have gained, immeasurably, by the passing of the old order.

I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am 'cause it's about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you're working in a patriarchal society when the word "feminist" has a weird connotation.

I am a bad feminist and a good woman. I am trying to become better in how I think and say and do - without abandoning what makes me human.

Any woman whose I.Q. hovers above her body temperature must be a feminist.

Some people think I'm saying, 'Women of the world unite -- you have nothing to lose but your men. It's not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.

I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women... This social revolution of feminism in the '70s really achieved so many of its goals-not every single one of them, obviously-but I think we should say it's great that these young women don't feel like they need to be feminists.

It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else... The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women.

I am basically a feminist. I think that women can do anything they decide to do.

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