gender activism Quotes

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 do think that more people are feminists than they realize.

I say I'm a rebel. I'm continually fighting against [sexism]. I don't take parts because they're for the sexy girl. I take the sexy girl parts and try to give them something else and make them a character.

Feminism is something you do. It's a verb. It's what you are. It's an activity; it's something you're actively engaged in.

I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism.

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

Women need to take charge of their lives and be as dynamic and active as they can be. I know that some people feel that there's a negative connotation to the notion of feminism like it has some hidden and ugly undercurrent. But that's ridiculous. My mother was a feminist and she was very politically-minded and always anxious to defend women's rights and advance a lot of social issues for women.

I'm like a bit of a feminist, I have kinds of highly political dreams. I'm a dreamer about taking on the patriarchy and all that kinda stuff. So I actually have the secret belief that there are enough people who would consider themselves quote-unquote "other" to support my particular taste.

These Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness...We are not going to have our men become subservient.

If you watch [The] Search for Signs of Intelligent Life [in the Universe], or The Incredible Shrinking Woman, or 9 to 5, there is a lot of gender politics at the forefront of Lily Tomlin work, which was kind of thrilling for me to be watching as a 10-, 11-, 12-year-old kid.

We as a group were a voice for women. We've been through a lot, we've experienced a lot. We were very outspoken. We expressed ourselves. To this day we stand by that, we freely talk about sex and relationships.

I grew up definitely a feminist, but I didn't call myself a feminist until I took my first women's studies class in college.

We want to try to galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change.

I've always considered myself a feminist, I always considered myself somebody who is a reproductive rights activist, and I've spent the past 25 years of my life speaking truth to power. And using humor to do that.

When I was growing up, the current of feminism was strong. You just had to step off the bank, and you'd be swept up. There was an active women's movement. My mother was a part of it.

I've actually heard people protesting furiously about straight male costume people as well. It's not universal and there are examples that break the mould all over the place. In my experience, it's more prevalent in the UK than in America.

The women's movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I had never asked. I began to feel heard in that movement. But it was because my voice was resonating with other voices.

If you're a woman and you've decided to step in front of people on any kind of platform and say that you have feelings about anything, you are committing a radical act. People view it as such, so you might as well actually commit a radical act.

I believe that feminism needs to teach more girls about how to make institutional changes and how to further engage men and boys into being our allies.

All the women in Pakistan working for change, don't give up on your dreams, this is for you.

Women sometimes go too far, it's true. But it's only when you go too far that others listen.

I realized that women are still not seen as equal to men. We had a big wave of feminism just before my generation was born. We're still sitting on this wave. There are very militant people and very aggressive women at the top of that wave but I think we have a new version of it now.

I think the best article was the article about radical feminists being against transgender women. I found that the most fascinating article and I absolutely loved it. I love battles within the gay community or feminist community. I love radical theorists.

It used to be that if someone was to get involved in feminism, it was probably because they were already interested. They were already interested in feminism; they were already interested in being an activist, and they found their way to like a NOW meeting or to a consciousness-raising group or something like that.

I have no use for "men's rights," any more than I have any use for "women's rights," but let us ask: Who was it that decided it was a good idea to politicize love, sex and marriage? Who spent the past four decades proclaiming that "the personal is political," so that every office flirtation and every petty domestic quarrel is a federal civil rights violation? The damned feminists, that's who.