40 Quotes About Feminism

A collection of inspiring, controversial, and downright outrageous quotes on feminism.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute. -Rebecca West

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes.” They will say, “Women don’t have what it takes.” -Clare Boothe Luce

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It’s a girl.” –Shirley Chisholm

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. -Faith Whittlesey

No one should have to dance backward all of their lives. -Jill Ruckelshaus

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. -Roseanne Barr

I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay. -Madonna

[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. -Pat Robertson

Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society. -Rush Limbaugh

You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. -Jane Galvin Lewis

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. -Brigham Young

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. -Gloria Steinem 

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union … Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. -Susan B. Anthony

One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man. -Marlo Thomas

I’ve yet to be on a campus where most women weren’t worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I’ve yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing. -Gloria Steinem

The only jobs for which no man is qualified are human incubators and wet nurse. Likewise, the only job for which no woman is or can be qualified is sperm donor. -Wilma Scott Heide

My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it’s very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. -Ani DiFranco

When a woman behaves like a man, why doesn’t she behave like a nice man? -Edith Evans

People have accepted the media’s idea of what feminism is, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right or true or real. Feminism is not monolithic. Within feminism, there is an array of opinions. –Judy Chicago

What, do you think that feminism means you hate men? –Cyndi Lauper

Feminism’s agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to “choose” between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves – instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men. -Susan Faludi

People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me. –Princess Diana

The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life. –Betty Buckley

Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. –Eleanor Roosevelt

Women get more unhappy the more they try to liberate themselves. -Brigitte Bardot

No man is as anti-feminist as a really feminine woman. -Frank O’Connor

Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who’ll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it’s the latter, so I sign up. -Margaret Atwood

Until women learn to want economic independence, and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots. –Crystal Eastman

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. -Timothy Leary 

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor – they have children that they don’t want or they cannot feed. -Isabel Allende

Male supremacy has kept woman down. It has not knocked her out. -Clare Boothe Luce

The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race. –Susan B. Anthony

I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He’s just incapable of it. -Barbara Jordan

The modern woman is the curse of the universe. A disaster, that’s what. She thinks that before her arrival on the scene no woman ever did anything worthwhile before, no woman was ever liberated until her time, no woman really ever amounted to anything. -Adela Rogers St. Johns

A good part – and definitely the most fun part – of being a feminist is about frightening men. -Julie Burchill

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There’s just too much fraternizing with the enemy. -Henry Kissinger

Instead of getting hard on ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men – bring them softness, teach them how to cry. -Joan Baez

My advice to the women’s clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias. -James McNeill Whistler

When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch. -Bette Davis

Why do people say “grow some balls?” Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding. -Betty White

 

Image: Karen Horton, James Vaughan, The U.S. National ArchivesDavid Shankbone.

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Jessica Marati

Jessica Marati currently resides in New York City and covers travel and sustainability for EcoSalon. Catch her weekly column, Behind the Label.