Jessy

“ASK FOR HELP. The anger that women feel at being treated unfairly, at recognizing societal hostility to their identities, is made significantly worse by low expectations. Wanting more and demanding more probably doesn’t come easily because low expectations are feminine. Low expectations, feelings of inadequacy, and low self-esteem are the driving engine of the self-help industry. Do you know when you need self-help? When no one else is helping you. An ideology of personal satisfaction and improvement is no substitute for systemic restructuring for liberation. It is no accident that the explosion of the self-help industry, one that to a great extent feeds off of women’s sense of inadequacy, coincided with the rise of choice feminism and neoliberal economics. Like choice feminism, self-help also reduced the need for social and state commitments to change by placing the blame for reduced circumstances on people who don’t have the time, money, or resources to “help themselves.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“The women of Juarez, and women across the world, do not want to have to take revenge, any more than Procne and Philomela did. What they want is to be able to rely on the modern gods -- the police, the courts, and the media -- for justice.”
― Helen Morales, Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths

“But Helen, he may have gone, but I am still here, and now what am I supposed to do with all this love?”
― Sarah Perry, Melmoth

“If representational visibility equals power, then almost-naked young white women should be running Western culture.”
― Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance