TOP TEN TUESDAY | QUOTES ABOUT FEMINISM

I’ve done a bunch of book quote posts – quotes about reading, quotes with swearing, quotes about race, Oscar Wilde quotes – so I figured I’d tackle a new area of quotes and do another theme that’s important to me – feminism. So here are some quotes on feminism I loved from books.

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” – Jane Austen, from Persuasion

“Aside from blow jobs, though, I’m through with being the perfect girlfriend, just through with it. Then if he’s sore with me, let him dump my ass. That will just give me more time to be a genius.” – Sheila Heti, from How Should A Person Be?

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” – Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One’s Own

“I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, from We Should All Be Feminists

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.” – Doris Lessing, from The Golden Notebook

“Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an “angry black woman.” I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it “angry” or “black” or “woman”?” – Michelle Obama, from Becoming

“The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.” – Sylvia Plath, from The Bell Jar

“I want to apologize to all the women I have called beautiful
Before I’ve called them intelligent or brave…
From now on I will say things like
You are resilient, or you are extraordinary
Not because I don’t think you’re beautiful
But because I need you to know
You are more than that.” – Rupi Kaur, from Milk and Honey

“Women should be respected as well! Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?” – Anne Frank, from The Diary of a Young Girl

” ‘When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.’ ”
” ‘I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.’ ” – Toni Morrison, from Sula

And that’s just a tiny taste. There are so, so many more. Quotes in which you can feel the frustration, awe, sisterhood, anger, pain, violation, belittlement, power, exhaustion, determination, and resilience of being a woman (as defined by each on her own terms) in this world. It can be so many things, but it is never, ever easy or simple.

Do any of you have favourite feminist quotes you don’t see above that you’d like to share? Any thoughts of our own? I’d absolutely love to hear anything you’d like to share. Memories of coming across an idea or an experience on the page that struck a particular chord. Books that stuck with you. Anything at all!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.