Jessica Valenti Quotes
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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.
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I think that the ideal of parenting can make people unhappy. It's that this lie that they're being told by society that parenting is one thing - and when parenting is something completely different - that's what makes them unhappy.
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How insulting is it to suggest the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things?
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There's something really terrible about having your BlackBerry next to your bed or having your laptop in the living room when you're talking to someone. The biggest source of stress in my life is the screen, the blogging.
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I grew up in Long Island City. When I was growing up, my parents owned a women's clothing store in Queens. It was for older women. I got my bras there, until I realized I didn't want those huge, taupe bras. Everything was beige, with massive amounts of hooks.
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Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
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The widely held belief that the heterosexual nuclear family is best for children has long been used as a smoke screen for homophobia and as a talking point to quash marriage-equality efforts.
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There's no one right way to parent, and there's no magic combination of genders that produces the most well-adjusted child. We all do the best we can at loving our kids and building our families.
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When you ask most American parents why they want to have kids, it's to bring more joy into their lives. So, when you don't feel that all-encompassing joy, it must be that something is wrong with you. I think it's dissatisfaction that the expectation was different than the reality.
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My problem with the wedding industry started when I studied in college and liked to have the television on in the background, and 'A Wedding Story' on TLC always came on, and I'd get irritated that the story of two people making a lifelong commitment to each other could be encapsulated in a half-hour show about the party they throw.
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Dismissing socialization and gender roles as piddling compared to this amorphous idea of 'maternal imperative' is part of the reason progress is stalled for family-friendly policies.
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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.
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I think talking is as casual as blogging, and sometimes writing can be as casual as talking. My informal writing style is a political choice, because I want feminism to be more accessible.
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If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
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Once you get married, women are still implicitly expected to do the majority of the housework and take care of any future children.
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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.
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The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough.
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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.
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The implications of likability are long-lasting and serious. Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world. And this desire to be liked and accepted goes beyond the boardroom - it's an issue that comes up for women in their personal lives as well, especially as they become more opinionated and outspoken.
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Women are brought up to believe you are going to be the better parent and you know what's best. I don't think that's necessarily true. As much as we have to ask men to step it up, we have to take a look at ourselves and be willing to give up some of that parental power.
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I kind of love that there's not really a feminist canon; or maybe there is, but it's being changed, that it's a constantly moving canon in the feminist blogosphere. I love that.
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Even the notion that women should have children at all is based on the idea that a woman's inherent and most important role is that of mother. Shockingly, men's 'innate' roles are a lot more fun than the ones bestowed on women.
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You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal - it just feels stifling.
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Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.