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And really, how insulting is it that to suggest that the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things? I'm betting some of those women would like to do great things of their own.

Jessica Valenti

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Jessica Valenti
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: November 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Thing
Insulting
Really
Suggest
Things
Incredible
Would
Raise
Like
Raises
People
Women
Best
Great
Betting

More quotes by Jessica Valenti

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When I did get married, and specifically after I got married and the New York Times style section featured my wedding in the vows column, which is really traditionally kind of seen as an elitist column, and it is, but I was happy to be in it. I thought it was good that they were covering a feminist wedding.
Jessica Valenti
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It used to be that if someone was to get involved in feminism, it was probably because they were already interested. They were already interested in feminism they were already interested in being an activist, and they found their way to like a NOW meeting or to a consciousness-raising group or something like that.
Jessica Valenti
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You know, people ask me a lot, well, can you be pro-life and be feminist? Can you be conservative and be feminist? And I think that yeah, maybe personally you can be those things. But I think if you're advocating for legislation, or if you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist.
Jessica Valenti
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I think that online harassment has become so ubiquitous on the Internet that a lot of women do feel safer, whatever that means, in spaces where they know like people are not going to bother them in that kind of way.
Jessica Valenti
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If there's an article about sexual assault, if there's a video about feminism on YouTube, you're going to get the most horrible, disgusting comments ever. And sometimes the comments are pornographic, and sometimes the comments are really harassing. So I think that it's kind of a difficult place for women to write sometimes.
Jessica Valenti
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Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
Jessica Valenti
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[Virginity is] a cultural ideology that conflates passivity - the act of not having sex - with superior morality.
Jessica Valenti
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Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen.
Jessica Valenti
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Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
Jessica Valenti
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I think it is effective when activists work from the margins, and I think that's the best way to go about it. And I do think that it's increasingly being more effective with the work that's being done online, that it is a bit more democratized, that whatever kind of activism is being done, it's not necessarily coming from one centralized place.
Jessica Valenti
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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.
Jessica Valenti
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It used to be, if you wanted to have a strong, influential voice in the feminist movement, you really needed to be part of this New York/D.C. elite group of feminists, or part of a mainstream feminist organization. And now it's kind of an amazing thing that you can just start a blog and put your voice out there and build your readership.
Jessica Valenti
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I'm glad that we have a history at all and that we can talk about feminist history. But I do think that it doesn't really pay attention to the complexity and the nuance that is feminist thought.
Jessica Valenti
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I think people resist feminism because they're scared. I think for women, they're scared of being picked on or of being called out.
Jessica Valenti
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I think that blogging and the Internet has completely changed feminism for ever, I think.
Jessica Valenti
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There is something to be said for the power of figureheads. After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, a record number of countries posted female ambassadors to the U.S. - some of whom have dubbed this 'the Hillary effect.'
Jessica Valenti
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Yes, the more successful you are—or the stronger, the more opinionated—the less you will be generally liked. All of a sudden people will think you’re too braggy, too loud, too something. But the trade-off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it.
Jessica Valenti
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Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason.
Jessica Valenti
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Hearing the Beastie Boys speak out against sexism made me feel like if these men who had once sung about getting girls to 'do the laundry' and 'clean up my room' could understand, maybe the rest of the world would follow suit. It made me hopeful in the best way.
Jessica Valenti
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Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can't help themselves not only drives home the point that women's sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men's sexual behavior.
Jessica Valenti