“I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ.”— Anaïs Nin, goodreads.com
“How many young women have I watched weep their days away over disinterested men? To all of them, I want to say, Look up. Get a life, because he has.”— Cammie McGovern, amazon.com
“My idea of a true feminist is a woman who feels free enough to do whatever she wants.”— Lana Del Rey, rollingstone.com
“No one wants to listen to our sad stories unless they are smoothed over with a joke or nice melody. And even then, not always. No one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about pain in a way that suggests that it doesn't end.”— Jessica Valenti, amazon.com
“Ignoring men, whether romantically or rhetorically, is existential violence to them”— Jessica Valenti, amazon.com
“Edgar Allen Poe once called the death of a beautiful woman 'the most poetical topic in the world' and I've often found myself wondering how many woman writers who have killed themselves or let themselves be otherwise obliterated were trying, somehow, to fulfill this most popular of narratives.”— Jessica Valenti, amazon.com
“When I gave birth to my first child, some partners at work treated my taking maternity leave as the equivalent of abandoning a ship in the middle of a typhoon to get a manicure.”— Ellen Pao, thecut.com
“I just believe that, as women, we should all look to empower one and other, rather than slut-shame and bitch-call. If you have time to do that, you should probably re-evaluate your priorities and use that time to better yourself or the world, because that is way too much energy to be expelling on so…”— Payton Sartain, hustleandhalcyon.com
“I think that males still struggle to write for females, which is totally fine because I don't think I could write a really impactful male role because that's not the life that I lived. So we'll just keep shouting and say we need more opportunities for not just women but people that are just differen…”— Brie Larson, businessinsider.com
“Women no longer accept white men as the official arbiters of right and wrong, of what is and is not technically constitutive of workplace hostility. If anything, white men would be the absolute worst judges of such affairs considering their relative social advantage.”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“It’s 2017 and men somehow still believe that what feminists are asking for is validation. Women are not asking for men’s opinion.”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“This is what shit toweling day in and day out does — it makes women feel like men really believe that their job is to just take men’s shit. Men should never be held personally accountable for their sexism. All sexism is really just women’s misunderstanding. It was a joke. It’s just locker-room talk.…”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“When men try to stifle women’s right to grievance with bad-faith arguments so badly construed that it insults everyone’s intelligence, it is the emotional equivalent of when a man wipes his ass with a towel and then flings it in your face.”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“Every day, men throw shit-stained towels in the face of women when they defend Bill Cosby and simultaneously accuse dozens of women of hearsay and fabrication. Or when they insist rape culture is just in women’s heads. These men demonstrate that they really think their extracurricular time is best s…”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”— Gloria Steinem, ec.europa.eu
“If we must have milestones—mine will be measured by how much joy I have collected at the end of each day and how often in this life I have truly, deeply, opened.”— Janne Robinson, jannerobinson.com
“It feels completely overwhelming, as a feminist, as a woman, as an actor, as a human, as someone who wants to continually push themselves and challenge themselves, and not be boxed in by what you’re told you can and can’t be. It feels incredible.”— Jodie Whittaker, doctorwho.tv
“You were all things soft: a feather, a candle a kiss on a tired cheek. But you were not weak. You took the world and made all yours. And yes, you became.”— Marisa Donnelly, tcat.tc
“And so you became. Your soul felt lighter, shifting with the weight of change. You stopped trying to fit and started to just be. Imperfect and flawed, tough and soft, tender and strong.”— Marisa Donnelly, tcat.tc