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Given the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.

Jessica Valenti

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Jessica Valenti
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: November 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
World
Persons
Seen
Parenthood
Person
Decision
Deliberate
Children
Choices
Unhappiness
Make
Less
Thoughtful
Would
Given
Selfish
Unthinkingly
Men
Another
Remains
Unintended
Think
Reality
Choice
Stigma
Thinking
Women
Bring
Parental

More quotes by Jessica Valenti

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If your husband is cheating on you, it doesn't mean that you need to get prettier -- it means he's a scumbag.
Jessica Valenti
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You're not too fat. You're not too loud. You're not too smart. You're not unladylike. There is nothing wrong with you.
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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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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Life is messy, and it's okay if you are too! We all screw up, that doesn't have to define us.
Jessica Valenti
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I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world.
Jessica Valenti
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I grew up definitely a feminist, but I didn't call myself a feminist until I took my first women's studies class in college.
Jessica Valenti
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When are we going to realize that hating other women - no matter how much money they have or how far they've fallen - is just as bad for ourselves as it is for anyone else?
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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Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
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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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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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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As I grew up and began identifying myself as a feminist, there were plenty of issues that continued to make me question marriage: the father giving the bride away, women taking their husband's last name, the white dress, the vows promising to obey the groom. And that only covers the wedding.
Jessica Valenti
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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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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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The cultural insistence that parenting is the 'most important' job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them.
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
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I do think that more people are feminists than they realize.
Jessica Valenti
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The biggest thinker that's influenced my feminism is definitely Bell Hooks, who's a feminist cultural critic, because of her accessibility but also just because she's a genius.
Jessica Valenti