quotations about feminism
One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behaviour was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary people’s experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.
ROSALIND COWARD
Our Treacherous Hearts
We need a new kind of feminism, one that stresses personal responsibility and is open to art and sex in all their dark, unconsoling mysteries.
CAMILLE PAGLIA
intro, Sex
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
REBECCA WEST
"Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics", The Clarion, November 14, 1913
How shall we ever make the world intelligent of our movement? I do not think that the answer lies in trying to render feminism easy, popular, and instantly gratifying. To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.
ADRIENNE RICH
On Lies
Feminism has led the way in demystifying personal relations, forcefully insisting they are political to the core.
ELIZABETH FOX GENOVESE
Feminism Without Illusions
When Betty Friedan and the feminists began their activities, and the feminist movement began to rear its head in our society, I was a young mother raising two children. I guess that was in the early '60s. I thought, "How strange! What is wrong with this woman? What are these people so angry about?" I didn't know any feminists. Everybody I knew was not oppressed and was very happy and was not miserable, and we were all enjoying raising our families. Life isn't fair -- we'd always been brought up to know that and understand that. But I think most of us, because we had a fundamental belief system -- a faith in God -- understood that there's a reason for adversity. One simply has to muddle through with the help of God. These women were out there screaming and ranting and raving -- so angry and bitter about whatever it was -- I simply thought it was an aberration. It just couldn't last. I was very busy with my family and their needs. I really didn't pay a lot of attention except to be appalled when I saw them on television.
COLLEEN PARRO
PBS interview
Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.
CHERIS KRAMERAE
A Feminist Dictionary
I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.
PAT ROBERTSON
The 700 Club, January 8, 1992
Like Broadway, the novel, and God, feminism has been declared dead many times.
KATHA POLLITT
Reasonable Creatures
Although feminism speaks the language of liberation, self-fulfillment, options, and the removal of barriers, these phrases invariably mean their opposites and disguise an agenda at variance with the ideals of a free society.
MICHAEL LEVIN
Feminism and Freedom
"Woman" is my slave name; feminism will give me freedom to seek some other identity altogether.
ANN SNITOW
"A Gender Diary", Conflicts in Feminism
I'm a huge supporter of women. What I'm not is a supporter of liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose. Feminism has led women astray. I love the women's movement -- especially when walking behind it.
RUSH LIMBAUGH
"Fox & Friends", Fox News, February 3, 2010
I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes ... at the end, there are always the damned dishes.
MARILYN FRENCH
The Women's Room
The taint of man-hating cannot be expunged from the feminist movement, because it is the core of true feminism.
MOLLY MCCANN
"Feminism: False Advertising at its Finest", Human Events, May 23, 2019
A feminist who lives the Bible produces, in the thinking of many, an oxymoron. Perhaps clever as rhetoric, the description offers no possibility for existential integrity. After all, if no man can serve two masters, no woman can serve two authorities, a master called Scripture and a mistress called feminism.
PHYLLIS TRIBLE
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality
Feminazi? Right. Because wanting your gender to be treated like human beings is just like invading Poland.
ANONYMOUS
Feminists have emphasized for a long time the importance of each woman’s individual entity and the necessity of economic independence. Perhaps it was necessary. But now I think we need some emphasis on the instinctive side of life, sex and motherhood.... Life isn’t all earning your living. Unfortunately we fall in love and Feminism must take that into consideration.
DORA RUSSELL
"Who is Dora Black?", Equal Rights, June 5, 1926
I think I'm in control of what I do and what I've done. I think that's the ultimate feminine power. Do as you want.
PAMELA ANDERSON
interview, Buzzfeed, April 16, 2013
Feminism was recognized by the average man as a conflict in which it was impossible for a man, as a chivalrous gentleman ... as a highly evolved citizen of a highly civilized community, to refuse the claim of this better half to self-determination.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"The Family and Feminism", The Art of Being Ruled
There is no history about which there is so much ignorance as this great movement for the establishment of equal political rights for women. I hope the twentieth century will see the triumph of our cause.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 20, 1900