Femminism Quotes

“When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on "men wearing dresses" or "men who want their penises cut off" that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults omitted against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviors and bodies”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“Consider that people will talk about the fact that I now "pass" as a woman, but nobody ever asks about how difficult it must have been for me to "pass" as a man before.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“Men still have everything to say about their sexuality, and everything to write. For what they have said so far, for the most part, stems from the opposition activity/
passivity, from the power relation between a fantasized obligatory virility meant
to invade, to colonize, and the consequential phantasm of woman as a “dark
continent” to penetrate and to “pacify.” (We know what “pacify” means in terms of
scotomizing the other and misrecognizing the self.) Conquering her, they’ve made
haste to depart from her borders, to get out of sight, out of body. The way man has
of getting out of himself and into her whom he takes not for the other but for his
own, deprives him, he knows, of his own bodily territory. One can understand
how man, confusing himself with his penis and rushing in for the attack, might
feel resentment and fear of being “taken” by the woman, of being lost in her,
absorbed, or alone.”
― Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

“Modesty is invisibility, said Aunt Lydia. Never forget it. To be seen – to be seen – is to be – her voice trembled – penetrated. What you must be, girls, is impenetrable.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“(...) many of these comments were unarguable mean-spirited and insulting, and no attempt was made to disguise them as flirting. I was clearly being overtly sexualized by these strangers, and not because I was deemed attractive, but simply because I appeared to be a woman. And the purpose of such blatantly vulgar remarks was not to express attraction or potencially garner my interest, but rather to exert a modicum of control over me: to make me feel uncomfortable, intimidated, angry, or fearful, to force me to look away or to cross the street to avoid their harassment.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“And if presidents and generals were man enough to wear lip gloss and mascara, they wouldn't have to prove their penis size by going to war all the time. Because male pride is not really about pride. It's about fear - the fear of being seen as feminine. And that's why "girl stuff" is so dangerous. And as long as most men remain deathly afraid of it, they'll continue to take it out on the rest of us.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“Perchè mi sento libera di scriverle [le parole]? La mia identità prende forma, si modella - sento che i racconti fioriscono mentre leggo la raccolta del "New Yorker" - sì, quanto i tempi saranno maturi, io sarò tra loro - le poetesse, le autrici.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Embedded within these systems of family, friendship, and community, these creepy men may appear harmless, their evil obscured by a benign collective presence, a fog of sorts. This softness swaddles and protect them. This fog abets.”
― Myriam Gurba, Creep: Accusations and Confessions

“But all that has been written about women by men should be suspect, for they are both judge and party.”
― Poullain De La Barre-F