A Quote by Kathleen Hanna

My mom was a housewife, and wasn't somebody that people would think of as a feminist, and when Ms. Magazine came out we were incredibly inspired by it. I used to cut pictures out of it and make posters that said, "Girls can do anything", and stuff like that, and my mom was inspired to work at a basement of a church doing anti-domestic violence work. Then she took me to the Soidarity Day thing, and it was the first time I had ever been in a big crowd of women yelling, and it really made me want to do it forever.
In Atlanta, my mom came and came downstairs and we were talking like behind the crowd. People from the crowd saw me and started running towards me, asking for pictures and stuff. This girl asked for a picture, and after she got it, she passed out.
I think Splash made people realize that I was still alive, and I think I inspired a lot of people. I have people coming up to me all the time in the airport saying, "Hey, you inspired me to learn how to swim!" "You inspired me to start moving around more." "You inspired me to start doing more for myself." So that was good. But mostly I took it because nobody had given me a job. And you know what really matters in life, right?
For me, the word 'housewife,' because of, like, the 'Real Housewives' - I don't think housewife really means what it used to mean. To me, it's been a little bit overused to the point that it's not as loaded as it might be. I feel like in a perfect world we would say 'American Mom with Kids,' or something like that. 'Mom with Small Children.'
I used to read a lot of fashion magazines: my favourite was 'Nylon.' I used to cut out all the pictures from magazines, and I had this book where I would keep all of the stuff that inspired me.
Alex decided he’d had enough. He put down his knife. “All right,” he said. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to work with me. Well, that’s fine. Because I don’t want to work with you either. And for what it’s worth, nobody would ever believe you were my mom because no mom would ever behave like you.” “Alex…,” Carver began. “Forget it! I’m going back to London. And if you’re Mr. Byrne asks why, you can tell him I didn’t like the jelly, so I went home to get some jam.
My mom was a big feminist, and when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to have typical girl toys: she did not let me have dolls. Barbies were banned in our household. She read feminist books to me; my mom was a major feminist.
She's always been there for me through anything, I can think of many school projects I had to do and I would say, 'Mom, can you help me.' She would help me write a paper or make a poster. She's just been that kind of mom. No matter what, she makes sure I'm alright and I thank her for that.
My mom has this thing where if I'm doing anything doing dirty or crazy, she sniffs it out and yells at me. But the good thing is my mom doesn't have cable, and so much of the stuff I've done was on cable, so many times she'll miss it. I tend to gloss over the crazier things I shoot.
We were a single-parent household for a while. It was just my mom, me, and my brother. We were on welfare for about a year and a half. But I remember my mom never complained, and we never wanted for anything. She always made ends meet and she's been the rock for the family. She instilled in me work ethic and toughness.
Initially, the only thing that mattered to me - I was too young to understand the politics of the day - was that there was a woman who was covering the NFL. I asked my mom if I could be a sportscaster when I grew up. My mom was an adventurous spirit herself. Much to my mom's credit, she said, "Yes, you can." It didn't matter to her that no other women were doing it at the time. It didn't matter to her that there was a double standard. It just mattered that her daughter had a dream and she was going to help her pursue that.
The biggest surprise was a picture my mom sent me, just about the time that we were about to wrap up the book, of me as a 5-year-old dressed in my first Halloween costume that she made for me. I said, "What's this? I never saw this photo." And she said, "We made you this black-and-orange Halloween costume out of crepe paper" - we were too poor to have fabric back then - "and you wanted to go as the Queen Of Halloween." And I was like, "What?" And she said, "Yeah, the Princess Of Halloween, the Queen Of Halloween, something like that.
When I was born, the umbilical cord came wrapped around my neck, so when I came out, I wasn't breathing. The cord had cut off my oxygen - not the entire time, just at the end, when my mom was giving birth. When I came out, I wasn't conscious, so they had to work on bringing me back. It was a crazy moment.
I was at a photo shoot, and I was wearing a cross necklace that my mom bought me, and somebody made a joke like, 'Why are you wearing a cross? Like you would be religious.' And then they took it away. I was really affected by that. The whole thing made me realize that I do want a cross with me at all times.
I started acting when I was five years old. I found it randomly, through listening to my brother study monologues. I auditorally started memorizing them for no reason, and started repeating them to anyone who would listen to me. And then, I begged my mom to let me do whatever that meant because I couldn't put into words exactly what that meant. It just meant me happy. And then, when I was 11 years old, I realized what I was doing and I looked to my mom and said, "Can I make this something I can do for the rest of my life?" She was like, "Yeah, sure, if you want to." And I was like, "Okay, great! I think I might want to do this forever."
When I was younger, it's like, 'Mom works. Normal adult stuff.' But you mature and start to look at it differently. I watched my mom struggle. She comes home tired. She doesn't want to do anything. As I got older, I started thinking, 'My mom doesn't deserve this.' My whole devotion became to get my mom out of that trailer.
The really funny thing is that my mom and my dad never, ever, ever wanted me to be in this businessbut it just kind of happened. I blame it all on my mom who was still dancing on stage with me when she was however many months pregnant. I always say that I was dancing and acting in the belly. I feel like it’s something I was born with and inspired by my family since I grew up backstage, watching them perform. I guess it was just a natural path for me.
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