“People call me a feminist whenever I express statements that distinguish me from a doormat.”

— Rebecca West

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Rebecca West 38

British feminist and author 1892–1983

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“I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics," in The Clarion, (14 November 1913), re-published in The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17 (1982), p. 219.
Variant: I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
Source: Young Rebecca: Writings, 1911-1917

“To blame feminism for women's “lesser life” is to miss entirely the point of feminism, which is to win women a wider range of experience. Feminism remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated — and enormously effective efforts to dress it up in greasepaint and turn its proponents into gargoyles. As Rebecca West wrote sardonically in 1913, “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: l only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."”

Susan Faludi book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Backlash (1992)

“I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)
1950s

“Look at this. Did you ever see a magazine called the New Musical Express? It turns out there is a pop group called The Police - I don't know why they are called that, presumably to distinguish them from the punks - and they've made an album of my essay The Ghost in the Machine. I didn't know anything about it until my clipping agency sent me a review of the record.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Writers at Work, ed. George Plimpton (1986).

“Lots of people call me Dave, my mum calls me David, my wife calls me Dave, I don't really notice what people call me.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Interview with Richard Bacon on XFM, 28 September 2006), as quoted in "Labour in shambles over leadership, says Cameron" in Western Mail (29 September 2006), p. 4.
2000s, 2006

“I think his statements that he made on the air about me have been personal enough. so I’d rather not have a personal phone call from him.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

The View. March 5, 2012.
Media interviews

“If a Latin player is sick, they said it is all in their head. I'm sick of these people who make these statements. They call me 'Jake.' It is Roberto… Roberto Walker Clemente.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Sidelights on Sports: I Remember Roberto" by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Tuesday, January 2, 1973), pp. 14 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6tgNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zGwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2562%2C472702 and 17 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6tgNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zGwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4826%2C491051
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>

“Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There’s nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world – like we are called the Third World.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Speaking on her writing not as a feminist [as quoted in "Zikoko" https://www.zikoko.com/life/oldies/9-thought-provoking-quotes-from-the-literary-icon-buchi-emecheta/).

“When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop, as quoted in Peace Behind Bars : A Peacemaking Priest's Journal from Jail (1995) by John Dear, p. 65; this is a translation of "Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista."
Variant translations:
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist.
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.
Misattributed

“At night, when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

“People call me a feminist whenever I express statements that distinguish me from a doormat.”

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