feminism

No, I have no desire to be a feminist, I just want to be a female,

If a woman defined herself solely by the man she was with__nd vice versa__he world would be a very shallow and insipid place, indeed.

I have often wondered if the irrational fear some men have of women that incites them to subjugate and oppress the female species begins in the adage: "I brought you into this world, I can take you out!

Repudiating the vulnerability I felt had wrecked the lives of women around me, I modelled myself on my controlled father. I wanted his freedom and his focus. To him, a family was an aquarium: controlled, contained. To the women I knew, a family was everything.

[A]fter all it was true that a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor ever has gone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad and dangers, and petty insults more irritating than dangers, lurk.

It was a rotten time to try to be a man in America. Until Blue came along I__ never even spent time around a man. Hell, I__ never even seen one. Where were all the men in this once great land?

The academic and writer Sara Ahmed has written brilliantly about the idea of the feminist killjoy, and why it should be embraced _ because feminism isn__ about making everyone around the table feel comfortable. It__ about being disruptive, challenging, and changing the terms of the debate, so that, over time, almost certainly with discomfort and backlash, everyone becomes freer.

She longs for fresh air and common sense, and is not willing to be a dolt for the sake of being called a deity.

We still live in a world where many men are pissed off that women choose to be powerful equals rather than submissive objects of sexual release. I am a human. A human being. Who cares how my body randomly decided to generate its reproductive organs in utero? I am not here with the obligation and purpose of being sexually appealing to another human being. I am here to get shit done.

We live in a world of self-deprecation, and while it__ healthy to make fun of ourselves from time to time, it bothers me when I see women of all ages belittling their accomplishments because they don__ want to appear boastful or overconfident. You don__ see a lot of guys out there underplaying their strengths or making light of what they__e good at, so why should women? While I get that there__ a fine line between owning your accomplishments and reciting every line of your résumé, there is absolutely no shame in being proud of what you__e managed to achieve! Own it!

When women turn on women, and take cheap shots at their decisions purely to score political points it serves as proof that feminism, as a movement, is dead and no longer relevant or credible.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God. He has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Privileged groups, like everyone else, want to think well of themselves and to believe that they are acting generously and justly.

But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.

The bar is masculine, and women must adopt traditionally masculine characteristics _ cultivated insensitivity, goal-orientated thinking, the prioritising of the material _ to compete.

Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's. As a kid growing up with books and films and stories instead of friends, that was always the narrative injustice that upset me more than anything else. I felt it sometimes like a sharp pain under the ribcage, the kind of chest pain that lasts for minutes and hours and might be nothing at all or might mean you're slowly dying of something mundane and awful. It's a feeling that hit when I understood how few girls got to go on adventures. I started reading science fiction and fantasy long before Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, before mainstream female leads very occasionally got more at the end of the story than together with the protagonist. Sure, there were tomboys and bad girls, but they were freaks and were usually killed off or married off quickly. Lady hobbits didn't bring the ring to Mordor. They stayed at home in the shire.

Put it down in capital letters: SELF-DEVELOPMENT IS A HIGHER DUTY THAN SELF-SACRIFICE. The thing that most retards and militates against women__ self development is self-sacrifice.

Dare to be as physically robust and varied as you always were.