Jessica Valenti > Quotes

“What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now.
You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.”
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“As different as we all are, there’s one thing most young women have in common: We’re all brought up to feel like there’s something wrong with us. We’re too fat. We’re dumb. We’re too smart. We’re not ladylike enough - ‘stop cursing, chewing with your mouth open, speaking your mind’. We’re too slutty. We’re not slutty enough.
Fuck that.
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, Full Frontal Feminism

“For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a "good" (i.e. "moral) girl and therefore worthy of praise.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“..the hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves-and encourage men to see us-as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities. But I know that this can't happen as long as American culture continues to inundate us with gender-role messages that place everyone-men and women-in an unnatural hierarchical order that's impossible to maintain without strife. For women to move forward, and for men to break free, we need to overcome the masculinity status quo-together.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, Full Frontal Feminism

“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, Full Frontal Feminism

“When I was in college, a teacher once said that all women live by a ‘rape schedule.’ I was baffled by the term, but as she went on to explain, I got really freaked out. Because I realized that I knew exactly what she was talking about. And you do too. Because of their constant fear of rape (conscious or not), women do things throughout the day to protect themselves. Whether it’s carrying our keys in our hands as we walk home, locking our car doors as soon as we get in, or not walking down certain streets, we take precautions. While taking precautions is certainly not a bad idea, the fact that certain things women do are so ingrained into our daily routines is truly disturbing. It’s essentially like living in a prison – all the time. We can’t assume that we’re safe anywhere: not on the streets, not in our homes. And we’re so used to feeling unsafe that we don’t even see that there’s something seriously fucked up about it.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“If you spend any amount of time doing media analysis, it’s clear that the most frenzied moral panic surrounding young women’s sexuality comes from the mainstream media, which loves to report about how promiscuous girls are, whether they’re acting up on spring break, getting caught topless on camera, or catching all kinds of STIs. Unsurprisingly, these types of articles and stories generally fail to mention that women are attending college at the highest rates in history, and that we’re the majority of undergraduate and master’s students. Well-educated and socially engaged women just don’t make for good headlines, it seems.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“It seems the word ‘slut’ can be applied to any activity that doesn’t include knitting, praying, or sitting perfectly still lest any sudden movements be deemed whorish.”
― Jessica Valenti, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know

“What’s the difference between venerating women for being fuckable and putting them on a purity pedestal? In both cases, women’s worth is contingent upon their ability to please men and to shape their sexual identities around what men want.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“Do you think it is fair that guy will make more money doing the same job as you? Does it piss you off and scare you when you find out about your friends getting raped? Do you ever feel like shit about your body? Do you ever feel like something is weong with you because you don't fit into this bizarre ideal of what girls are supposed to be like? Well, my friend, I hate to break it to you, but you're hardcore feminist. I swear.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“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, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“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, Full Frontal Feminism

“Shit is fucked up when it comes to appearances and women. We’re expected to be hot - but if we are, we’re vain and stupid. And if we’re not hot we’re useless. Kind of hard to get around. But we’re not stupid. We know that we’re doing damage to ourselves - not only to our bodies but also to our mental well-being. And it’s not worth it.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“...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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“Girls “going wild” aren’t damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. The lie of virginity—the idea that such a thing even exists—is ensuring that young women’s perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. 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…so while young women are subject to overt sexual messages everyday, they’re simultaneously being taught—by the people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less—that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain “pure”.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now. You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank. Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.” Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“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, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know

“My least favorite form of street harassment is when a guy asks why I’m not smiling. It’s related to that: Women aren’t allowed to be quiet or stoic or shy—or, hell, just in a bad mood—without being criticized. Women are bitchy and frigid if we don’t seem accessible at all times, for the most part to men. We’re supposed to be perpetually friendly. Who wants to live up to that? And seriously, when was the last time you heard a quiet woman described as “deep”?
Men who are serious are just that—serious. Think laconic cowboys and Clint Eastwood-style movie heroes. Strong and silent is a desirable personality trait for men—women, not so much. Because where silence in men is seen as strength, silence in women (if not seen as bitchy) is seen as weakness—she’s shy, a wallflower.”
― Jessica Valenti, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know

“Still, somehow, inexplicably, “man-hater” is a word tossed around with insouciance as if this was a real thing that did harm. Meanwhile we have no real word for men who kill women. Is the word just “men”?”
― Jessica Valenti, Sex Object: A Memoir

“Whether it appears in a story about a man killing his girlfriend while calling her a whore or in trying to battle conservative claims that emergency contraception or the HPV vaccine will make girls promiscuous, the purity myth in America underlies more misogyny than most people would like to admit”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“I’ve always found the idea of 'saving' your virginity intriguing: it’s not as if we’re packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting — and dangerous — 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 (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined — think 'virginity' and 'chastity'): if we have them, when we’ll lose them, and under what circumstances we’ll be rid of them.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“While boys are taught that the things that make them men--good men--are universally accepted ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs. Literally.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

“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, Full Frontal Feminism