Andrea Dworkin quote: “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeate…”

“Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Context: Anti-feminism is also operating whenever any political group is ready to sacrifice one group of women, one faction, some women, some kinds of women, to any element of sex-class oppression: to pornography, to rape, to battery, to economic exploitation, to reproductive exploitation, to prostitution. There are women all along the male-defined political spectrum, including both extreme ends of it, ready to sacrifice some women, usually not themselves, to the brothels or the farms. The sacrifice is profoundly anti-feminist; it is also profoundly immoral...

"Anti-feminism," Right Wing Women (1983), pp. 230-231.

“Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

(1984)

“Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

35 Undeniable Truths of Life Sacramento Union 1988, also quoted in * The "Truth" according to Limbaugh: Feminism established "to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society" Media Matters for America 2005-08-16 http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200508160001, [The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, New Press, 1995-05-01, 56, 156584260X, 31782620], [Rush Limbaugh now has a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Here are just 20 of the outrageous things he's said, Jason, Silverstein, February 6, 2020, CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rush-limbaugh-presidential-medal-of-freedom-state-of-the-union-outrageous-quotes/], and [Rush Limbaugh’s most outrageous moments in 25 years on the radio, August 1, 2013, Morgan, Whitaker, MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/rush-limbaughs-most-outrageous-moments-25]

/ 1990s

“If one assumes, as I do, that battery is caused by the belief permeating this culture that hierarchical rule and coercive authority are natural, then all our relationships tend to be based on power and domination, and thus all forms of battery are linked.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

(1984)

“It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Actress Emma Watson says revealing photo does not undermine feminism" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-emmawatson-idUSKBN16C0QV, Reuters, in response to critics of her photos in Vogue magazine (March 5, 2017)

“Our economy cannot fully recover unless women can participate fully. I believe, I think we all believe, this is a national emergency — women leaving the workforce in these numbers is a national emergency, which demands a national solution.”

Kamala Harris (1964) United States Senator from California

Source: " Kamala Harris: Women Are Facing A National Emergency https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/kamala-harris-women-national-emergency_n_602ec604c5b66da5dba0101a?ri18n=true" (February 18, 2021)

“Feminism was always wrong to pretend that women could “have it all.” It is not male society but mother nature who lays the heaviest burden on woman.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 89
Context: Feminism was always wrong to pretend that women could “have it all.” It is not male society but mother nature who lays the heaviest burden on woman. No husband or day care can adequately substitute for a mother’s attention. My feminist heroes are the boldly independent and childless Amelia Earhart and Katherine Hepburn, who has been outspoken in her opposition to the delusion of “having it all.”

“It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about demonizing. Feminism is a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about oppression, it’s about hatred, it’s about harming men. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Actress Emma Watson says revealing photo does not undermine feminism" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-emmawatson-idUSKBN16C0QV, Reuters, in response to critics of her photos in Vogue magazine (March 5, 2017)

“As a woman, I completely reject Hillary’s brand of bourgeois feminism because it leaves out millions of immigrant women, poor women, and the women under her bombs around the world.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

TeleSUR, April 17, 2016 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PV_PLCC6jeI#t=1597

“The Arab Spring did a great deal for women because the person who spread the word in the first place was a woman. Women participated in it; they were fully out there in the street.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)
Context: The Arab Spring did a great deal for women because the person who spread the word in the first place was a woman. Women participated in it; they were fully out there in the street. Nawal El Saadawi is a founding figure of Egyptian and Middle Eastern feminism who wrote a book opposing female genital mutilation (of which she is a victim). She’s been banned. She’s been in prison. She’s now in her eighties and during the Arab Spring she was like the wise woman of Liberation Square, sitting in the middle of it as young women and young men came to her for instruction, for blessings, and so on.
But it’s very often the case with revolutionary moments that women are present but then they’re drummed out of it afterwards.

“Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”

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