Juka

“In a culture which holds the two-parent patriarchal family in higher esteem than any other arrangement, all children feel emotionally insecure when their family does not measure up to the standard. A utopian vision of the patriarchal family remains intact despite all the evidence which proves that the well-being of children is no more secure in the dysfunctional male-headed household than in the dysfunctional female-headed household. Children need to be raised in loving environments. Whenever domination is present love is lacking. Loving parents, be they single or coupled, gay or straight, headed by females or males, are more likely to raise healthy, happy children with sound self-esteem. In future feminist movement we need to work harder to show parents the ways ending sexism positively changes family life. Feminist movement is pro-family. Ending patriarchal domination of children, by men or women, is the only way to make the family a place where children can be safe, where they can be free, where they can know love”
― bell hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire

“I was too selfish to have a child before I was ready for one, and there's no shame in admitting that. Women should be selfish about our choices, for as long as we have the privilege of being selfish. Selfishness in women isn't the great crime that people like to pretend it is. We are as entitled as men to prioritise ourselves and our desires, and we are as capable as men of knowing what's best for us. Why is everyone so pathologically terrified of selfish women? The word is thrown around like an insult, as if the worst thing a woman could possibly do (aside from being fat, having sex with whomever she pleases and whenever, swearing, having an abortion, drinking alcohol, standing up for herself and being a working mother) is to decide that her life matters.
But women are allowed to be selfish. It shouldn't be considered a 'privilege' to be able to control our own bodies nor should it be treated like a favour done to us by the state. It's a right that, by and large, has been stolen from us and used to keep us in thrall to a paternalistic body that pretends to know what's best for us but is really only interested in maintaining the order that has proved best for them.”
― Clementine Ford, Fight Like a Girl

“Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can't understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?”
― Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind