Top 960 Feminism Quotes & Sayings

[T]he presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it - it's simply in the water.

Some of the biggest advocates for feminism seem to believe that in order to feel powerful you have to make another woman subservient, and that is not what feminism is about at all.

Going to school and learning feminism is one thing and living feminism is another.

I get very frustrated when I hear women saying, "Oh, feminism is passé," because I think feminism means empowerment. Men can be feminists, too! Many men are feminists. We need feminism. It's not against men; it's about the empowerment of women. It's the respect of women - giving women equal rights, the same opportunities.

One's enemies are always talking about 'post-feminism.' It is a word invented by people who would like to do away with feminism.

I really dislike it when women reject feminism; that's ridiculous. I am a product of feminism. Without feminism I would not be making films.

Conservatives still attack feminism with the absurd notion that it makes its adherents less attractive to men; in truth, it is feminism that has made forty-two-year-old women so desirable.

Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.

It certainly wasn't taught in school beyond the idea of "girls can do anything that boys can do" - I understood that kind of pop culture feminism. I did not understand anything else about feminism.

Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.

I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism.

We don't all have to believe in the same feminism. Feminism can be pluralistic so long as we respect the different feminisms we carry with us, so long as we give enough of a damn to try to minimize the fractures among us. Feminism will better succeed with collective effort, but feminist success can also rise out of personal conduct.

Feminism is a way of understanding reality, not just a series of things to do. Feminism challenges our predilection for one right answer, one right God, one size fits all.

I sincerely believe patriarchy to be at the root of all of our social diseases and feminism, it's antidote, to be a prerequisite to peace on earth. feminism provides an alternative way of thinking and structuring things that focuses on and prioritizes relationships and de-emphasizes hierarchy, separation and domination.

My feminism has evolved way beyond self-empowerment and I see feminism as a path to peace on earth. The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. I do believe. As men and women, together, I really long to feel my society evolve its understanding since we're one of the leaders in the f-word. I want us to grow our idea of feminism collectively and get both men and women involved in undoing patriarchy. It's huge. It's a huge job.

My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power structures.

Feminism has neglected the needs of woman of color and people of color in general. But I don't think it means that we should overlook feminism as having nothing valuable to contribute.

What is feminism? We are just asking for equal opportunities, nothing beyond that. It doesn't mean that you cannot be pretty or you cannot cook or you can't do a whole lot of things. Feminism's got a bad rap; that's it.

Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms. It's not about man-hating. It's not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years.

I think that feminism is in cycle. Feminism rotates between backlash and interest.

I would suggest that a feminism which does not also seek to alter the exploitation of poorer women is not feminism at all, but is simply a variant form of upper-class politics and self-privileging.

I don't think that the forms of feminism that are prevailing on campus are left wing. It's a conservative form of feminism in gender politics and there [isn't] anything particularly progressive about it. That's what is baffling. You've got conservatives acting like liberals touting free speech and due process.

My debt to feminism is simply incalculable. Feminism allowed me to see past a 'reality' that I had once taken as a given. It helped me to pay attention to countless voices, my own included, that I had been taught 'don't count.' Feminism allows me to maintain hope.

You had a generation of women, of which I'm part, where it was a stigma to be associated with feminism; there was a backlash. Now you have a generation that is clearly embracing feminism because, at the end of the day, the definition of feminism is just equality.

It was feminism that made it possible for women to go to the Ivy League and women to be astronauts and women to have their own TV shows. What happened, though, was that the generation after feminism, which is my generation, misunderstood what feminism was saying.

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.

Something you hear a lot is that feminism dead. But if feminism is dead, why do people try so hard to kill it?

Feminism's failings do not mean we should eschew feminism entirely. People do terrible things all the time, but we don't regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things. We should disavow the failures of feminism without disavowing its many successes and how far we have come.

If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.

My original goal in the '90s, after I found feminism and I was the first generation in my family to go to college, was to spread this information that feminism was still very much alive, and that you can't believe the media telling you that it doesn't need to exist and that it doesn't exist.

People sometimes say that we will know feminism has done its job when half the CEOs are women. That’s not feminism; to quote Catharine MacKinnon, it’s liberalism applied to women. Feminism will have won not when a few women get an equal piece of the oppression pie, served up in our sisters’ sweat, but when all dominating hierarchies - including economic ones - are dismantled.

For women in, say, Alabama, 'feminism' is a dirty word. They would never march in the streets. But although they don't think of themselves as the beneficiaries of feminism, they are.

I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world.

Feminism is not only for women It's something everyone can participate in, and evolve together, as the first step in the right direction. I see feminism as a tool to achieve that balance and peace.

When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.

Let's admit that feminism came from liberalism and it was very positive. But then it went dark. It went into a bad place. When feminism replaced biology with social construct, they started to say that everything about a human being was created by your environment or by your - by environmental cues as opposed to innate traits... Like you didn't achieve what you could get because it was your fault. They denied traits that are applied across all cultures. And that's where feminism went wrong is it denied biology and makes them look foolish.

This is the burgeoning days of feminism. This is when the militant feminists are the feminism hormones are raging. They are excited. They are happy. This is a new day! They are through being plugged into these formulas where men run everything and you're in servitude to them.

I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile. I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism - or commies.

Feminism is a political mistake. Feminism is a mistake made by women's intellect, a mistake which her instinct will recognize.

Because my work discusses feminism and disapproves of feminism, it is important from the leftist standpoint to destroy Dave Sim as an individual and to ignore his work.

Korean feminism is on the brink of death. Korea has a less clear boundary between popular literature and serious literature than in other countries. I feel that feminism is abandoned like a product that was a craze in the past.

Reading about feminism when I was a teenager and seeing it as a young woman, I realized that feminism really hadn't dealt with sexuality; it really hadn't dealt with transgender or gay women.

I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.

People have accepted the media's idea of what feminism is, but that doesn't mean that it's right or true or real. Feminism is not monolithic. Within feminism, there is an array of opinions.

I think the world is ambivalent about feminism. So I can't blame college students. I think they're reflecting the greater culture's attitude toward feminism. So what I can do is, in ways that are appropriate, advocate for feminism and help the students learn what feminism is about.

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!"

As I started to think about how I can claim feminism while also acknowledging my humanity and my imperfections, 'bad feminism' simply seemed like the best answer.

the point of feminism ... is to win women a wider range of experience. Feminism remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated - and enormously effective - efforts to dress it up in greasepaint and turn its proponents into gargoyles.

What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself. We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.

I'm sure a few marriages broke up because of feminism; it doesn't make feminism a cult.

I personally feel like the conversation around feminism has advanced a lot. People are starting to realize privileged white feminism isn't cutting it. We have to look at the holistic experience of all women, or assigned women, on the planet.

For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept... Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, god. I’m just not really that interested.

Diversity has got to be a part of modern feminism, and I think that my feminism is stronger because its an inclusive thing. I won't be backed into a corner that polarizes me against other women. And I wished they wouldn't be either.

When I grew up, feminism wasn’t something that was really talked about. There’s a really negative stereotype about feminism in the media. That really plays badly for young women understanding the movement. Maybe people don’t want to identify themselves as feminists because of the label. But people need to understand what feminism means and educate themselves before they reject it.

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 discovered feminism around 1970-72-precisely the time when feminism began to exist in France. Before that, there was no feminism.

Feminism has been so co-opted, but the fact is, feminism benefits men as well.

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.

I really don't care what people say. It's amazing that feminism continues to exist at all, considering how much counter-feminism is out there.

I think that there have been a lot of fear-based assertions that feminism is about aggression, and that is incorrect and untrue. Feminism is about equality; that's what it's about.