Jessica Valenti famous quotes

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.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Party #Commitment #College

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

#Girl #Boys #Men

Value yourself for what the media doesn't - your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it's not just valuing yourself for your ability to look hot in a bikini and be available to men, it's an improvement.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Smart #Men #Media

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

#Hate #Matter #Realizing

Feminism isn't simply about being a woman in a position of power. It's battling systemic inequities; it's a social justice movement that believes sexism, racism and classism exist and interconnect, and that they should be consistently challenged.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Believe #Racism #Justice

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

#Home #Men #Helping

It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Daughter #People #Teach

Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Drinking #Independent #Drug

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

#Cheating #Husband #Mean

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.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Character #Mean #Self Worth

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

#Successful #Thinking #People

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

#Jobs #Smart #Important

There were a WHOLE LOTTA us not having sex at Harvard . . . but none of us thought that that was special enough to start a club about it, for pete’s sake.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Sex #Special #Clubs

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

#Sex #Mean #Thinking

Men in their hearts hate women. It doesn’t matter how much we love them. They hate us”
-- Jessica Valenti

#Hate #Heart #Men

Men take what women make and claim it as their own.Men don’t love childrenThey kill them in a heartbeat to hurt a woman
-- Jessica Valenti

#Hurt #Men #Heartbeat

In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Feminist #Clinton #Traitor

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

#Sex #Fun #Joy

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

#Country #Numbers #Female

Whether it's repro rights, violence against women, or just plain old vanilla sexism, most issues affecting women have one thing in common - they exist to keep women 'in their place.' To make sure that we're acting 'appropriately,' whatever that means.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Mean #Issues #Rights

The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She's never a woman of color. SHe's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled. "Virgin" is a designation for those who meet a certain standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Girl #Sexy #Color

When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Dirty #Mean #Men

While falling in love is fun, it's not everything, and it's not the antidote to an unfulfilled life, despite what Reese Witherspoon movies may tell you.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Falling In Love #Fun #Love Is

...idea at play here is that of “morality.” When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens
-- Jessica Valenti

#Kindness #Integrity #Compassion

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

#Baby #Law #The End Of The Day

Be as pissed off as you want to be. Don’t hold back because you think it’s unladylike or some such nonsense. We shouldn’t be shamed out of our anger. We should be using it. Using it to make change in our own lives, and using it to make change in the lives around us. (I know, I’m cheesy.) So the next time someone calls you emotional, or asks if you’re PMSing, call them on their bullshit.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Emotional #Thinking #Bullshit

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

#People #Insulting #Incredibles

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

#Children #Selfish #Reality

The only purpose of an engagement ring is to show you 'belong' to someone, and your man makes bank.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Men #Purpose #Shows

Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Children #Child Rearing #Thankless

The less obvious hurdle is that of preparing parents emotionally and putting forward realistic images of parenthood and motherhood. There also needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that not everyone should parent - when parenting is a given, it's not fully considered or thought out, and it gives way too easily to parental ambivalence and unhappiness.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Motherhood #Giving #Parent

I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Sex #Believe #Thinking

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

#Husband #Father #Names

According to the virginity movement, men have no self-control when it comes to anything sexual.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Men #Self #Virginity

claims about what's 'natural' have long been used to reinforce traditional gender roles and values. ... 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.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Mother #Children #Fun

[Virginity is] a cultural ideology that conflates passivity - the act of not having sex - with superior morality.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Sex #Morality #Ideology

The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Reality #Needs #Enough

If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Powerful #People #Feminism

I revisit old favorites like 'Buffy' and 'Battlestar Galactica' when I'm bored. I am obsessed with 'Scandal.' I love TV.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Bored #Scandal #Tvs

Social media is not just another way to connect feminist and activist voices - it amplifies our messages as well.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Media #Voice #Feminist

I hope that by modeling feminism in my own life, work and relationships that it will haut become an organic part of my daughter's life. But I'm also fully prepared for her to become a Republican as a way to rebel as a teenager - that would be just my luck!
-- Jessica Valenti

#Daughter #Teenager #Luck

It's become impossible to enjoy most quality television shows because the hurt or endangered women device is so frequently used.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Hurt #Quality #Television

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.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Lying #Parenting #Thinking

You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal — it just feels stifling.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Giving Up #Perfect #Feminist

My informal writing style is a political choice, because I want feminism to be more accessible.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Writing #Choices #Political

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

#Hate #Smart #Men

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Couple #Media #Ideas

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

#Summer #Teacher #Jobs

My parents have a wonderful marriage, but they have been together since my mother was 12, married when they were just teenagers and are barely ever separated. They even work together. As a result, I have always thought of marriage as involving the loss of a certain amount of autonomy.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Mother #Teenager #Loss

It seems odd that we continue to worry about the reputations of men who are accused of sexual wrong-doings.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Men #Worry #Reputation

Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Fever #Disease

As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Country #Pregnancy #Kuwait

Once you get married, women are still implicitly expected to do the majority of the housework and take care of any future children.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Children #Majority #Care

There have been women who stumbled across Feministing randomly, through a bizarre Google search or something, and had no idea what feminism was. They thought it was something older women do, or bought into the hairy bra-burning man-hating stereotype 100 percent. Anything that deviates from that is very exciting for them.
-- Jessica Valenti

#Hate #Men #Ideas

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

#Women #Smart #Loud

In 1986, Gloria Steinem wrote that if men got periods, they 'would brag about how long and how much': that boys would talk about their menstruation as the beginning of their manhood, that there would be 'gifts, religious ceremonies' and sanitary supplies would be 'federally funded and free'. I could live without the menstrual bragging - though mine is particularly impressive - and ceremonial parties, but seriously: Why aren't tampons free?
-- Jessica Valenti

#Religious #Party #Boys