“Most of all - there is nothing 'frail' about coming forward to talk about abuse. That shit is hard and brave.”— Jessica Valenti, twitter.com
“The patriarchal power structure might sometimes be hamhanded in enforcing its oppressive norms, but often it’s tricky. It hangs back amid an organic feminist boom and then disguises itself amid the earnest supporters, using their revolutionary vocabulary to argue for the status quo. It sows division…”— Claire Fallon, huffingtonpost.com
“The backlash has decided it’s here, but that doesn’t mean we have to let it crush us. It’s not the ’90s anymore.”— Claire Fallon, huffingtonpost.com
“Find a woman who will sell out solidarity for a pat on the head and a cookie from the establishment, and use her identity as a dodge for claims of overt misogyny. If you’re really successful, this tactic will bear fruit for generations, as the precocious Katie Roiphes of yesteryear become the season…”— Claire Fallon, huffingtonpost.com
“But where Jones frames this as a clash between feminist factions ― 'One group of feminists will try to define sexual assault and another group will call them alarmists' ― it appears rather to be a modern elaboration of an age-old antifeminist tactic: Make it clear that you’ll give top dollar and top…”— Claire Fallon, huffingtonpost.com
“The sharper sting comes from a more intimate betrayal: woman after woman using her prestigious media platform and her disingenuous claims of feminist identity to undercut a movement that uplifts women’s voices and questions sexual norms that harm them.”— Claire Fallon, huffingtonpost.com
“If every time a man comes onto a woman it is defined as assault or misconduct, then women are rendered perpetual victims, with no power or agency to define or defend themselves.”— Aisha Tyler, twitter.com
“The line between seduction and coercion has shifted, and shifted quickly, over the past few years (the past few months, even). When I was in my 20s, a decade ago, sex was something of a melee. 'No means no' was the only rule, and it was still solidly acceptable in mainstream social circles to bother…”— Lindy West, nytimes.com
“There is a reflexive tendency, when grappling with stories of sexual misconduct like the accusations leveled at Ansari this past weekend — incidents that seem to exist in that vast gray area between assault and a skewed power dynamic — to point out that sexual norms have changed.”— Lindy West, nytimes.com
“In 1975, 42 years before the comedian Aziz Ansari reportedly brought a date home to his apartment and repeatedly tried to initiate sex with her after she told him 'next time' and 'I don’t want to feel forced,' Susan Brownmiller published 'Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.'”— Lindy West, nytimes.com
“And perhaps, if your first reaction is to dismiss or belittle this woman’s experience because it is not a tidy story of assault, sit with that a minute, come at it again with compassion and know that assault can still take place when a woman goes home with a man.”— Kate Leaver, twitter.com
“Please, let’s use the Aziz Ansari story to discuss how complex consent can be. If you’re tempted to think it was “just a bad date,” please, talk to the women in your life. My heart aches for how many have been through similar.”— Kate Leaver, twitter.com
“And for all the pieces decrying INNOCENT MEN'S LIVES why does no one mention the men negatively impacted by the Shitty list were those whose wrongdoings were properly investigated & acted upon?”— Jessica Valenti, twitter.com
“Wow. I spend so much time trying to get their clothes off, I never thought of taking mine off.”— Larry David, George Costanza, Jason Alexander, imdb.com
“There are so many men I love who do NOT frame the differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape as an excuse or worse - our problem.”— Minnie Driver, twitter.com
“Prison is no place for a man with naturally tight glutes.”— Krista Vernoff, Frank Gallagher, William H. Macy, imdb.com
“There is no hierarchy of abuse – that if a woman is raped [it] is much worse than if woman has a penis exposed to her that she didn’t want or ask for… You cannot tell those women that one is supposed to feel worse than the other. And it certainly can’t be prescribed by a man. How about: it’s all fuc…”— Minnie Driver, theguardian.com
“To every woman wondering if she should come forward and share her story: the world is listening, the world is ready. You deserve justice. I did it. I came forward and risked everything and shared my story. It was the scariest thing I've ever done, but god it was worth it.”— Susan Fowler, twitter.com
“Women coming forward about harassment and assault are not "an angry mob".”— Susan Fowler, twitter.com
“In his eyes, I was not an artist. I wasn’t even a person. I was a thing: not a nobody, but a body.”— Salma Hayek, nytimes.com