Quotes from Jessica Valenti

When abstinence curricula contain information about sexual abuse or assault (though they often don't), the message is similar: The onus of preventing sexual assault is on girls, not on men.

By fetishizing youth and virginity, we're supporting a disturbing message: that really sexy women aren't women at all- they're girls.

A high school teacher once told me that identity is half what we tell ourselves and half what we tell other people about ourselves. But the missing piece he didn't mention—the piece that holds so much weight, especially in the minds of young women and girls—is the stories that other people tell us about ourselves.

After all, a right that can't be exercised is not very useful to anyone.

There's nothing revolutionary about reinforcing the virgin/whore dichotomy.

If we have no place to go where we can escape that reaction to our bodies, where is it that we're not forced? The idea that these crimes are escapable is the blind optimism of men who don't understand what it means to live in a body that attracts a particular kind of attention with magnetic force.

So as lovely as romance can be, we have to make sure that we're not falling into the trap of making our entire life about searching for an unrealistic notion of happiness. While falling in love is fun, it's not everything, and it's not the antidote to an unfulfilled life, despite what Reese Witherspoon movies may tell you.

I've thought often about why - why?! - anyone, especially other women, would try to disrupt feminist work that combats violence. What in the world could be the point of that? The only reason I've come up with, and I think it makes sense, is fear of becoming that "impure" woman.

The important thing is that we are participating-whether it's by running, voting, or supporting (financially or otherwise) candidates who make a difference to women. Don't leave shit up to others, 'cause that's how we get fucked over.

A high school teacher once told me that identity is half what we tell ourselves and half what we tell other people about ourselves.

Social expectations about what constitutes a good or a bad mother haunt every decision, and the rise of the parental advice industry ensures that moms and dads feel inadequate at every turn.

I spoke on a panel once with a famous new age author/guru in leather pants and she said that the problem with women is that we don't "speak from our power," but from a place of victimization. As if the traumas forced upon us could be shaken off with a steady voice- as if we had actual power to speak from.

Trusting women means also trusting them to find their way. This isn't to say, of course, that I think women's sexual choices are intrinsically 'empowered' or 'feminist.' I just believe that in a world that values women so little, and so specifically for their sexuality, we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because in this kind of hostile culture, trusting women is a radical act.

Antifeminists are the only ones who benefit from their version of working on women's behalf; in reality, they put other women at risk and fail to solce any larger problems.

Americans believe it's best for kids to be with their parents as much as possible; the truth is, however, that our kids do better when they have a lot of people invested in their growth and development—not just their parents, and not just their mothers.

Robin Simon, a sociology professor at Florida State University and researcher on parenting and happiness, told The Daily Beast in 20083 that parents "experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers.

And there's an argument to be made that if intentional and thoughtful parenthood is an indicator of parental and family happiness, then having gay parents—parents who weren't able to "accidentally" have a child—may be, in fact, among the better circumstances there are for a child.

That public spaces are not really public for you, but a series of surprise private moments that you can't prevent or erase. And so you put your headphones on and look straight ahead and don't smile even when they tell you to and just keep walking.

Still, somehow, inexplicably, "man-hater" is a word tossed around with insouciance as if this was a real thing that did harm. Meanwhile we have no word for men who kill women. Is the word just "men"?

Edgar Allan Poe once called the death of a beautiful woman "the most poetical topic in the world" and I have often found myself wondering how many women writers who have killed themselves or let themselves be otherwise obliterated were trying, somehow, to fulfil this most popular of narratives. We're most valuable when we're smiling, dead, posing, our words hanging on the page with no real body behind them.

This is why I prefer Queens to any other place. The borough of my parents and small business owners is populated by people who know how to work around the system when it tries to fuck you.

Women are raising children, picking up socks, and making sure you feel like a man by supporting you when you need it and looking sexy (but not trying too hard, because that would be pathetic). We're being independent and bad bitches while wearing fucking lipstick and heels so as not to offend your delicate aesthetic sensibility, yet even just the word "feminist" pisses you off. How dare we.

A high school teacher once told me that identity is half what we tell ourselves and half what we tell other people about ourselves. But the missing piece he didn't mention—the piece that holds so much weight, especially in the minds of young women and girls—is the stories that other people tell us about ourselves. Those narratives become the ones we shape ourselves into. They're who we are, even if so much of it is a performance.

So while my refusal to keep laughing or making you comfortable may seem like a real fucking downer, the truth is that this is what optimism looks like. Naming what is happening to us, telling the truth about it--as ugly and uncomfortable as it can be--means that we want to change. That we know it is not inevitable.