Quote

Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason.

Jessica Valenti

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jessica Valenti
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: November 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Exist
Comes
Reason
Something
Stereotypes
Stereotype
Anti
Feminist

More quotes by Jessica Valenti

Image
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
Image
You have to have your personal life, and at the end of the day I think what people forget, especially when you're online, is that you're a person too, right, and that you're not this ideal of feminism, that everything you do like feminism just like falls in your wake.
Jessica Valenti
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Stress from blogging keeps me up at night.
Jessica Valenti
Image
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
Image
Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
Jessica Valenti
Image
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
Image
Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won't have sex, but rather that they'll have it without pleasure.
Jessica Valenti
Image
If you go to places like YouTube, it's a cesspool, and a lot of the comments are really horrifying and misogynist and harassing.
Jessica Valenti
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
Jessica Valenti
Image
Life is messy, and it's okay if you are too! We all screw up, that doesn't have to define us.
Jessica Valenti
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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