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The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Jessica Valenti

Jessica Valenti

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.

Women, Smart, Hate

Jessica Valenti

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.

Justice, Racism, Woman

Jessica Valenti

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.

Day, Experience, College

Jessica Valenti

The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough.

Truth, Reality, Enough

Jessica Valenti

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.

Society, Lie, People

Jessica Valenti

In addition to shaming sexual-assault victims, positioning abstinence as women’s domain further promotes the notion that it’s women’s morality that’s on the line when it comes to sex, men just can’t help themselves, so their ethics are safe from criticism.

abstinence, morality, sexual-assault

Jessica Valenti

Another abstinence book claims, “A woman is far more attracted by a man’s personality, while a man is stimulated by sight. A man is usually less discriminating about those to whom he is physically attracted.

attraction, virginity

Jessica Valenti

So remember, this is definitely a screwed-if-you-do, screwed-if-you-don’t situation. You just remember to say, “Screw them.

gender-roles, sexism

Jessica Valenti

Yet despite all these things we know to be true- despite the preponderance of evidence showing the mental and emotional distress people demonstrate in violent and harassing environments- we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them.

misogyny, patriarchal-culture, sexism

Jessica Valenti

But 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. Without a pat solution, silver lining, or happy ending we’re just complainers — downers who don’t realize how good we actually have it.Men’s pain and existential angst are the stuff of myth and legends and narratives that shape everything we do, but women’s pain is a backdrop- a plot development to push the story along for the real protagonists. Disrupting that story means we’re needy or shellfish, or worst of all, man-haters – as if after all men have done to women over the ages the mere act of not liking them for it is most offensive.

Jessica Valenti

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.

jessica-valenti, kids, why-have-kids

Jessica Valenti

This is why I prefer Queens to any other place. The borough of my parents and small business owners is populated by people who know how to work around the system when it tries to fuck you.