There's going to be biological differences between the genders. There's going to be biological differences between two women or two men. There's biological differences between all of us. My concern is, why are we so concerned about it?
It seems odd that we continue to worry about the reputations of men who are accused of sexual wrong-doings.
You're not too fat. You're not too loud. You're not too smart. You're not unladylike. There is nothing wrong with you.
I think it's important to let kids be kids and be cautious about accelerated sexuality as pressure to mature too quickly. My hackles go up when I see a teacher making kids feel like they are older, special, mature. Let kids be kids.
In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.
One of the things I really like about doing work online, and the thing I like about the work I'm doing now, is that I get to meet feminists all the time and I get to read new feminists every day on the blogosphere. And it's really that kind of diversity of thought that informs me more than anything else these days. It's just kind of learning something new all the time. And I kind of love that there's not really a feminist canon; or maybe there is, but it's being changed, that it's a constantly moving canon in the feminist blogosphere. I love that.
When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.
We've been growing our readership every month, and we're kind of like, where are they all coming from? This is wonderful! And I think one of the best surprises was that you hear so often that young women don't care about feminism, that young women don't identify as feminists. But really, the majority of our readers are young women. So to see so many young people kind of get involved and really take to Feministing.com was a really exciting thing.
And really, how insulting is it that to suggest that the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things? I'm betting some of those women would like to do great things of their own.
Feminism isn't simply about being a woman in a position of power. It's battling systemic inequities; it's a social justice movement that believes sexism, racism and classism exist and interconnect, and that they should be consistently challenged.
Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.
Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen.
Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can't help themselves not only drives home the point that women's sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men's sexual behavior.
I hope that by modeling feminism in my own life, work and relationships that it will haut become an organic part of my daughter's life. But I'm also fully prepared for her to become a Republican as a way to rebel as a teenager - that would be just my luck!
I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world. I think, though, for Western feminism and for American feminism, it not so surprisingly continues to center Western feminism and American feminism. And I think the biggest hurdle American feminists have in terms of taking a more global approach is that too often when you hear American feminists talk about international feminism or women in other countries, it kind of goes along with this condescending point of view like we have to save the women of such-and-such country; we have to help them.
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.
There's something really terrible about having your BlackBerry next to your bed or having your laptop in the living room when you're talking to someone. The biggest source of stress in my life is the screen, the blogging.
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. I hear from a lot of young women, you know, I don't want to call myself a feminist because I don't want to get in an argument with someone. And it's just not cool; like it's not a cool thing to be associated with. There's no benefit to saying that you're a feminist.
I remember at the time - right before we started Feministing.com - doing a Google search for the term "young feminism" and the term "young feminist," and the first thing that came up was a page from the National Organization for Women that was about 10 or 15 years old. And it just struck me as so odd that there was all of this young feminist activism going on, but that it wasn't necessarily being represented online, that the first things in a Google search to come up were really, really old. I think to a certain degree we really filled a gap, and that's why we got such a large readership.
I do think that more people are feminists than they realize.
Hearing the Beastie Boys speak out against sexism made me feel like if these men who had once sung about getting girls to 'do the laundry' and 'clean up my room' could understand, maybe the rest of the world would follow suit. It made me hopeful in the best way.
Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
I revisit old favorites like 'Buffy' and 'Battlestar Galactica' when I'm bored. I am obsessed with 'Scandal.' I love TV.
I don't get much career advice at all, and I would like some.
The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear.
The only purpose of an engagement ring is to show you 'belong' to someone, and your man makes bank.
You know, people ask me a lot, well, can you be pro-life and be feminist? Can you be conservative and be feminist? And I think that yeah, maybe personally you can be those things. But I think if you're advocating for legislation, or if you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist.
I do think that there is a real crisis of masculinity that's happening in America. I think the problem is - the way it's being framed is that there's a problem with masculinity because women are too powerful, or women are taking up too much space.
As I grew up and began identifying myself as a feminist, there were plenty of issues that continued to make me question marriage: the father "giving" the bride away, women taking their husband's last name, the white dress, the vows promising to "obey" the groom. And that only covers the wedding.
I think feminism is taking off. It's just not visible in the way that we would like it to be.
Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason.
I think that the ideal of parenting can make people unhappy. It's that this lie that they're being told by society that parenting is one thing - and when parenting is something completely different - that's what makes them unhappy.
I think the biggest hurdle American feminists have in terms of taking a more global approach is that too often when you hear American feminists talk about international feminism or women in other countries, it kind of goes along with this condescending point of view like we have to save the women of such-and-such country; we have to help them.
I think we get into very dangerous territory when we start to define who can and cannot be a feminist. It's such a slippery slope, and I have no interest in being the feminist police!
I certainly wouldn't be writing books if it hadn't been for the feminist blogosphere, and I think that's a really amazing thing.
Young women know that something is off; they know that the world is a messed-up place. They know that the world is a sexist place because they've had experiences in their own life; they see things happening to their friends, to their parents. But because feminism isn't widely accepted, because they don't necessarily have access to feminist thought or to feminist groups, they don't necessarily have a language to put behind the feelings and the thoughts that they're having. And they certainly don't have a support system to let them know like, hey, that's okay; you're right, that is screwed up.
The biggest thinker that's influenced my feminism is definitely Bell Hooks, who's a feminist cultural critic, because of her accessibility but also just because she's a genius.
If you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist.
The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She's never a woman of color. SHe's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled. "Virgin" is a designation for those who meet a certain standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.
It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.
It used to be, if you wanted to have a strong, influential voice in the feminist movement, you really needed to be part of this New York/D.C. elite group of feminists, or part of a mainstream feminist organization. And now it's kind of an amazing thing that you can just start a blog and put your voice out there and build your readership.
...idea at play here is that of “morality.” When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens
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. But I do think that personally they're missing out. If you don't identify as a feminist, you're missing out on this whole community that's out there that could really help you with your work, help you with your personal life, and just give you support.
Men take what women make and claim it as their own.Men don’t love childrenThey kill them in a heartbeat to hurt a woman
Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.
I think that blogging and the Internet has completely changed feminism for ever, I think. You know, it used to be, 10 years ago, if you wanted to have a strong, influential voice in the feminist movement, you really needed to be part of this New York/D.C. elite group of feminists, or part of a mainstream feminist organization. And now it's kind of an amazing thing that you can just start a blog and put your voice out there and build your readership.
The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough.
I think I was in high school, actually, and it was a guidance counselor or someone said, you know, you're just too loud; like you need to just stop talking so much and stop being so opinionated; like no one wants to listen to you because you're really annoying. And I'm glad that I didn't shut up, because it seems like people are listening.
Life is messy, and it's okay if you are too! We all screw up, that doesn't have to define us.
Social media is not just another way to connect feminist and activist voices - it amplifies our messages as well.
I don't find the wave model very productive, because I think it kind of serves to fan the flames of generational tension, or make it seem like there's more generational tension than there actually is.
You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal — it just feels stifling.
I do think that we have this incredible opportunity because being on-line - the Internet is a relatively new space - we do have this incredible opportunity to change that dynamic, to make sure that women are present in all sorts of spaces, not just women-only spaces.
If there's an article about sexual assault, if there's a video about feminism on YouTube, you're going to get the most horrible, disgusting comments ever. And sometimes the comments are pornographic, and sometimes the comments are really harassing. So I think that it's kind of a difficult place for women to write sometimes.
My problem with the wedding industry started when I studied in college and liked to have the television on in the background, and 'A Wedding Story' on TLC always came on, and I'd get irritated that the story of two people making a lifelong commitment to each other could be encapsulated in a half-hour show about the party they throw.
I don't think that there's a guy behind the desk at every newspaper saying "No, woman" and sending her on her way, but that's what's systemic about it, right, like that people don't quite realize that maybe they're attracted to a male op-ed more than a female op-ed, or because of networking they know this person from going out to a bar with them.
I think the biggest obstacle I still have to overcome is myself, and just kind of struggling every day with what to do with the work and where to go next.
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.
I know I certainly wouldn't be writing books if it hadn't been for the feminist blogosphere, and I think that's a really amazing thing. And just the sheer power of outreach I think is incredible. 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.
Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason. The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear. If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
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.
The cultural insistence that parenting is the 'most important' job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them.
According to the virginity movement, men have no self-control when it comes to anything sexual.
Whether it's repro rights, violence against women, or just plain old vanilla sexism, most issues affecting women have one thing in common - they exist to keep women 'in their place.' To make sure that we're acting 'appropriately,' whatever that means.
If you don't identify as a feminist, you're missing out on this whole community that's out there that could really help you with your work, help you with your personal life, and just give you support.
There was no real strategic decision about editorial tone. It was kind of a write whatever you want to write, and we'll see how it goes. I think that we lucked out in that all of the women who started writing at Feministing.com were really funny, and I don't think that's something people are used to seeing or hearing when they read feminism. You know, you think feminism and you kind of think academic, women's studies, dry, humorless; there are all of these stereotypes that go along with what feminist thought is and what feminist writing is.
[Virginity is] a cultural ideology that conflates passivity - the act of not having sex - with superior morality.
The less obvious hurdle is that of preparing parents emotionally and putting forward realistic images of parenthood and motherhood. There also needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that not everyone should parent - when parenting is a given, it's not fully considered or thought out, and it gives way too easily to parental ambivalence and unhappiness.
Small blogs are starting up big campaigns.
Yes, the more successful you are—or the stronger, the more opinionated—the less you will be generally liked. All of a sudden people will think you’re too braggy, too loud, too something. But the trade-off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it.
I think that we're our own worst enemies in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to doing work where you're criticized a lot or doing work where there's a lot of hater directed at you; and to not constantly second-guess yourself.
I'm glad that we have a history at all and that we can talk about feminist history. But I do think that it doesn't really pay attention to the complexity and the nuance that is feminist thought.
My informal writing style is a political choice, because I want feminism to be more accessible.
There were a WHOLE LOTTA us not having sex at Harvard . . . but none of us thought that that was special enough to start a club about it, for pete’s sake.
claims about what's 'natural' have long been used to reinforce traditional gender roles and values. ... Even the notion that women should have children at all is based on the idea that a woman's inherent and most important role is that of mother. Shockingly, men's 'innate' roles are a lot more fun than the ones bestowed on women.
Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won't have sex, but rather that they'll have it without pleasure.
I always go with the dictionary definition of feminism, which is just social, political and economic equality for women. And that's kind of a strategic thing on my part, because I think that it's the hardest definition to argue with. You know, who doesn't want that? Everyone wants equality for women.
I always go with the dictionary definition of feminism, which is just social, political and economic equality for women.
I think it is effective when activists work from the margins, and I think that's the best way to go about it. And I do think that it's increasingly being more effective with the work that's being done online, that it is a bit more democratized, that whatever kind of activism is being done, it's not necessarily coming from one centralized place.
As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.
Lately, I'm thinking a lot about, in parenting and in my writing, how to create a language about sexism in a way that is attractive and approachable to this age group. I can teach my daughter about not talking to strangers but I can't teach her about how to succeed in a sexist world or even how to exist as a body in a sexist world. I want to begin by asking girls what they want and why they want it? Interrogating that. If this is the sex life you want, what makes you think you want that? I imagine the only way to authentically get at sexuality is by asking those questions.
Obviously Feministing is kind of a women's space in a certain way, even though we have a lot of male readership and people who don't identify as women.
If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
I think that online harassment has become so ubiquitous on the Internet that a lot of women do feel safer, whatever that means, in spaces where they know like people are not going to bother them in that kind of way.
Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
Be as pissed off as you want to be. Don’t hold back because you think it’s unladylike or some such nonsense. We shouldn’t be shamed out of our anger. We should be using it. Using it to make change in our own lives, and using it to make change in the lives around us. (I know, I’m cheesy.) So the next time someone calls you emotional, or asks if you’re PMSing, call them on their bullshit.
I hear from a lot of young women, you know, I don't want to call myself a feminist because I don't want to get in an argument with someone. And it's just not cool; like it's not a cool thing to be associated with.
At the end of the day, though, the entire basis for consent laws doesn't make sense. We're not old enough to decide if we don't want a baby, but we are old enough to have one?
Value yourself for what the media doesn't - your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it's not just valuing yourself for your ability to look hot in a bikini and be available to men, it's an improvement.
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.
I ask myself a lot how other women can be against the ideology that has to do with women empowering other women. Going along with the access of power and the status quo and forging a special position and the thought process that goes: I am not like those women. When it comes to things like assault, for example, perhaps it makes them feel safer. It's the denial: I'm okay. This won't happen to me. Acknowledging that the world is a profoundly unsafe for women is a scary thought.
There have been women who stumbled across Feministing randomly, through a bizarre Google search or something, and had no idea what feminism was. They thought it was something older women do, or bought into the hairy bra-burning man-hating stereotype 100 percent. Anything that deviates from that is very exciting for them.
I think that it's incredibly important that we're actually paying attention to the feminism that's going on on the ground in different countries and see what we can do to support the work that's already going on, as opposed to kind of assuming that we know best for women in other areas.
Men in their hearts hate women. It doesn’t matter how much we love them. They hate us”
Stress from blogging keeps me up at night.
While falling in love is fun, it's not everything, and it's not the antidote to an unfulfilled life, despite what Reese Witherspoon movies may tell you.
I think that almost all traditional institutions are sexist, and they're probably racist and homophobic, and they're all of these things. But a lot of them, like marriage, are too embedded into the culture to give up.
I think my biggest career mistake has been taking on too much. And I think this is kind of - I think it's related to the Internet world, where you're always multitasking and you have a million windows open and you feel like you can do a lot at the same time.
It's become impossible to enjoy most quality television shows because the hurt or endangered women device is so frequently used.
Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
I think the idea that feminism is dead is dangerous because it leads women and men to believe that (1) they don't have to do anything; the work has been done, and that everything is okay now; and (2) it leaves them kind of alone, I think, in a struggle, and that's something I've seen a lot when I go to colleges and I speak to young women.
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 think motherhood has made issues all feel much more urgent than they did before. So it didn't necessarily change how I feel about certain things - it just fired me up to be even more active on behalf of my daughter.
When are we going to realize that hating other women - no matter how much money they have or how far they've fallen - is just as bad for ourselves as it is for anyone else?
If you go to places like YouTube, it's a cesspool, and a lot of the comments are really horrifying and misogynist and harassing.
I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they're playing, and they're teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can't wait to put my kid in day care because I could see how much they loved it.
There is something to be said for the power of figureheads. After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, a record number of countries posted female ambassadors to the U.S. - some of whom have dubbed this 'the Hillary effect.'
Instead of focusing on men and focusing on what we can do to prop them up, people seem really incredibly focused on the fact that women are doing well and maybe that's not such a good thing.
I think that blogging and the Internet has completely changed feminism for ever, I think.
Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
Given the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.
There's no benefit to saying that you're a feminist. But you do kind of get a nice patriarchal pat on the head if you say, oh, I'm not like that, like I'm not one of those crazy feminists, which is something that happens a lot, where young women or young men will express some sort of feminist ideal, will say, you know, I think it's crap that Wal-Mart won't give out emergency contraception, but I'm not one of those crazy feminists.
I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor.
My parents have a wonderful marriage, but they have been together since my mother was 12, married when they were just teenagers and are barely ever separated. They even work together. As a result, I have always thought of marriage as involving the loss of a certain amount of autonomy.
There's going to be biological differences between the genders. There's going to be biological differences between two women or two men. There's biological differences between all of us. My concern is, why are we so concerned about it? Why are we so worried about it? Why, whenever a study comes out about men do this one way and women do this one way, or men's brains and women's brains - why are we so interested in that? You know, what makes us so fascinated by differences between the sexes? And I think more often than not that interest is deeply embedded in sexism.
I'm really aware of how feminism and feminist rhetoric has been appropriated by the right.
If your husband is cheating on you, it doesn't mean that you need to get prettier -- it means he's a scumbag.
Once you get married, women are still implicitly expected to do the majority of the housework and take care of any future children.
I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world.
In 1986, Gloria Steinem wrote that if men got periods, they 'would brag about how long and how much': that boys would talk about their menstruation as the beginning of their manhood, that there would be 'gifts, religious ceremonies' and sanitary supplies would be 'federally funded and free'. I could live without the menstrual bragging - though mine is particularly impressive - and ceremonial parties, but seriously: Why aren't tampons free?
One of the things I really like about doing work online, and the thing I like about the work I'm doing now, is that I get to meet feminists all the time and I get to read new feminists every day on the blogosphere.
The studies about differences between the sexes that you see kind of get propped up in the media are more often than not denigrating women in some way, saying that women really don't have any spatial understanding, and that's why they can't park.
Something you hear a lot is that feminism dead. But if feminism is dead, why do people try so hard to kill it?
Something you hear a lot is that feminism dead. But if feminism is dead, why do people try so hard to kill it? Something just isn't making sense there. So I think when young women hear like, hey, someone's trying to get something over on me, you know, someone's trying to deliberately keep me away from a movement that could make my life better, I think that really resonates with them.
The Internet is the new public space. And because women are out in public, people don't like that in much the same way that if you're walking down the street you get harassed. I think the same kind of thing happens online, and I think that's why a lot of women are hesitant to put their voice out there.
