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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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Jessica Valenti
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: November 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Loud
Smart
Wrong
Women
Nothing
Unladylike
Fats

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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[Virginity is] a cultural ideology that conflates passivity - the act of not having sex - with superior morality.
Jessica Valenti
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I've been thinking a lot about Lady Gaga and what she means for feminism. I think - I find her completely fascinating, and I really like what she has to say.
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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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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It's become impossible to enjoy most quality television shows because the hurt or endangered women device is so frequently used.
Jessica Valenti
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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.
Jessica Valenti
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Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen.
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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Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
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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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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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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I do think that more people are feminists than they realize.
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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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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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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I think it's important to let kids be kids and be cautious about accelerated sexuality as pressure to mature too quickly. My hackles go up when I see a teacher making kids feel like they are older, special, mature. Let kids be kids.
Jessica Valenti
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Whether people identify as feminists or not, if they're doing work that furthers a feminist cause, I think that's wonderful, like if it works for me, right, it works for the movement.
Jessica Valenti
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At the end of the day, though, the entire basis for consent laws doesn't make sense. We're not old enough to decide if we don't want a baby, but we are old enough to have one?
Jessica Valenti