Victoria > Victoria's Quotes

“Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular, and by nature it is interminable, repetitive, and nearly unbearable.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

“You might imagine that a person would resort to self-mutilation only under extremes of duress, but once I'd crossed that line the first time, taken that fateful step off the precipice, then almost any reason was a good enough reason, almost any provocation was provocation enough. Cutting was my all-purpose solution.”
― Caroline Kettlewell, Skin Game

“Well how many troubles should equal a legitimate reason for self-mutilation? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? And how monumental must these troubles be? There’s probably no critical mass beyond which cutting yourself would ever seem to most people like a reasonable choice. I cut because it did look that way to me. I cut because something had to give. I cut because the alternatives were worse.”
― Caroline Kettlewell, Skin Game

“In the end, if we could ever really pursue the question 'why' to its true headwaters, we might find it is often no more than this: a beginning so trifling that it hardly bears notice. The flip of a switch. The flash of a neurotransmission. Maybe there was always something amiss, like a bulb planted and forgotten that blooms when the season is right.
...A thousand girls could have gotten through my seventh grade and breezed on with a laugh; I didn't.”
― Caroline Kettlewell

“The most important thing to remember about depression is this: you do not get the time back. It is not tacked on at the end of your life to make up for the disaster years. Whatever time is eaten by a depression is gone forever. The minutes that are ticking by as you experience the illness are minutes you will not know again.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Nothing indicts female allegiance to patriarchy more than the willingness to behave as though the problems created by cultural investment in sexist thinking about the nature of male and female roles can be solved by women's working harder.”
― Bell Hooks, Communion: The Female Search for Love

“YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.
One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“How can anyone love someone who is less than a full person, unless love itself is domination per se?”
― Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse

“The real core of the feminist vision, its revolutionary kernel if you will, has to do with the abolition of all sex roles - that is, an absolute transformation of human sexuality and the institutions derived from it. In this work, no part of the male sexual model can possibly apply. Equality within the framework of the male sexual model, however that model is reformed or modified, can only perpetuate the model itself and the injustice and bondage which are its intrinsic consequences.
I suggest to you that transformation of the male sexual model under which we now all labor and "love" begins where there is a congruence, not a separation, a congruence of feeling and erotic interest; that it begins in what we do know about female sexuality as distinct from male - clitoral touch and sensitivity, multiple orgasms, erotic sensitivity all over the body (which needn't - and shouldn't - be localized or contained genitally), in tenderness, in self-respect and in absolute mutual respect. For men I suspect that this transformation begins in the place they most dread - that is, in a limp penis. I think that men will have to give up their precious erections and begin to make love as women do together. I am saying that men will have to renounce their phallocentric personalities, and the privileges and powers given to them at birth as a consequence of their anatomy, that they will have to excise everything in them that they now value as distinctively "male." No reform, or matching of orgasms, will accomplish this.”
― Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics

“I think this point is so important, I'm going to repeat it: You should never listen to criticism that is primarily intended to wound, even if it contains more than a grain of truth.”
― Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life

“Paradoxically .. the very feminist movement that gave women more options also helped create pressure on many of us to be strong, successful, and independent—the kind of women who would theoretically be immune to any form of abuse from men. As a result, women who are in gaslighting and other types of abusive relationships may feel doubly ashamed: first, for being in a bad relationship, and second, for not living up to their self-imposed standards of strength and independence.”
― Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life

“One of the first steps in freeing yourself from a gaslighting relationship, then, is to acknowledge how unpleasant and hurtful you find this Emotional Apocalypse. If you hate being yelled at, you have the right to insist that yelling not be a part of your disagreements. Maybe some other woman wouldn't mind the loud voice, but you do. If that makes you sensitive, so be it. You have the right to set limits where you want them, not where some mythical other, "less sensitive" woman wants them.”
― Robin Stern

“A sense of humor is the best indicator that you will recover; it is often the best indicator that people will love you. Sustain that and you have hope.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Radical feminist theorists do not seek to make gender a bit more flexible, but to eliminate it. They are gender abolitionists, and understand gender to provide the framework and rationale for male dominance. In the radical feminist approach, masculinity is the behaviour of the male ruling class and femininity is the behaviour of the subordinate class of women. Thus gender can have no place in the egalitarian future that feminism aims to create.”
― Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism

“Male domination, and the low and stigmatised status of women, cause teenage girls to engage in punishment of their bodies through eating disorders and self-mutilation. There is increasing evidence that woman-hating Western cultures are toxic to girls and very harmful to their mental health. It is, perhaps, not surprising, therefore, that there seem to be some girls baling out and seeking to upgrade their status.”
― Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism

“As a feminist, I consider the female pronoun to be an honorific, a term that conveys respect. Respect is due to women as members of a sex caste that have survived subordination and deserve to be addressed with honour. Men who transgender cannot occupy such a position.”
― Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism

“The scope of the transgender empire may be reaching its peak, as transcriticism is increasing at a fast pace both within activist feminism and from wives and regretters. There is an increasing groundswell of criticism of the concept and practice of transgenderism from a newly invigorated radical feminist movement. Moreover, the idea of transgenderism has become so vague and general that the category is in danger of being exploded.”
― Sheila Jeffreys

“Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. ‘Virgin’ meant not married, not belong to a man - a woman who was ‘one-in-herself’. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virle. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chasity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past…, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’, with no connotations to sexual chasity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the ‘Virgin Mary’ as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched. When Joan of Arc, with her witch coven associations, was called La Pucelle - ‘the Maiden,’ ‘the Virgin’ - the word retained some of its original pagan sense of a strong and independent woman. The Moon Goddess was worshipped in orgiastic rites, being the divinity of matriarchal women free to take as many lovers as they choose. Women could ‘surrender’ themselves to the Goddess by making love to a stranger in her temple.”
― Monica Sjoo, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth

“In the studies I have directed, and in my international experience speaking with women in prostitution, the majority of women in prostitution come from marginalized groups with a history of sexual abuse, drug and alcohol dependencies, poverty or financial disadvantage, lack of education, and histories of other vulnerabilities. These factors characterize women in both off and on-street locations. A large number of women in prostitution are pimped or drawn into the sex industry at an early age. These are women whose lives will not change for the better if prostitution is decriminalized. Many have entrenched problems that are best addressed not by keeping women indoors but in establishing programs where women can be provided with an exit strategy and the services that they need to regain their lost lives. There is little evidence that decriminalization or legalization of prostitution improves conditions for women in prostitution, on or off the street. It certainly makes things better for the sex industry, which is provided with legal standing, and the government that enjoys increased revenues from accompanying regulation.”
― Janice G. Raymond

“If women really choose prostitution, why is it mostly marginalized and disadvantaged women who do? If we want to discuss the issue of choice, let’s look at who is doing the actual choosing in the context of prostitution. Surely the issue is not why women allegedly choose to be in prostitution, but why men choose to buy the bodies of millions of women and children worldwide and call it sex.

Philosophically, the response to the choice debate is ‘not’ to deny that women are capable of choosing within contexts of powerlessness, but to question how much real value, worth, and power these so-called choices confer.

Politically, the question becomes, should the state sanction the sex industry based on the claim that some women choose prostitution when most women’s choice is actually 'compliance’ to the only options available?

When governments idealize women’s alleged choice to be in prostitution by legalizing, decriminalizing, or regulating the sex industry, they endorse a new range of 'conformity’ for women.

Increasingly, what is defended as a choice is not a triumph over oppression but another name for it.”
― Janice G. Raymond, Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”
― Brene Brown

“When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on "going it alone." Somehow we've come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we're very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It's as if we've divided the world into "those who offer help" and "those who need help." The truth is that we are both.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Perfectionism is a shield that we carry with a thought process that says this, 'If I look perfect, live perfect, work perfect, and do it all perfectly, I can avoid or minimize feeling shame, blame, and judgement.”
― Brené Brown

“Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Suppose to Be and Embrace Who You Are: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“You're a brick! You're a whole cartload of bricks.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“That two women could mean a great deal to each other while they awaited men to lead them to marriage and the real business of life is negligible; that they could believe that the real business of life is in meaning a great deal to each other and that men are only incidental to their lives—is of course frightening.82”
― Janice G. Raymond, A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female