One of the things I really like about doing work online, and the thing I like about the work I'm doing now, is that I get to meet feminists all the time and I get to read new feminists every day on the blogosphere. Jessica Valenti More Quotes by Jessica Valenti More Quotes From Jessica Valenti There's going to be biological differences between the genders. There's going to be biological differences between two women or two men. There's biological differences between all of us. My concern is, why are we so concerned about it? Why are we so worried about it? Why, whenever a study comes out about men do this one way and women do this one way, or men's brains and women's brains - why are we so interested in that? You know, what makes us so fascinated by differences between the sexes? And I think more often than not that interest is deeply embedded in sexism. Jessica Valenti brain men thinking I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor. Jessica Valenti believe sex thinking Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen. Jessica Valenti fever disease Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won't have sex, but rather that they'll have it without pleasure. Jessica Valenti joy fun sex I know I certainly wouldn't be writing books if it hadn't been for the feminist blogosphere, and I think that's a really amazing thing. And just the sheer power of outreach I think is incredible. It used to be that if someone was to get involved in feminism, it was probably because they were already interested. They were already interested in feminism; they were already interested in being an activist, and they found their way to like a NOW meeting or to a consciousness-raising group or something like that. Jessica Valenti writing book thinking At the end of the day, though, the entire basis for consent laws doesn't make sense. We're not old enough to decide if we don't want a baby, but we are old enough to have one? Jessica Valenti the-end-of-the-day law baby claims about what's 'natural' have long been used to reinforce traditional gender roles and values. ... Even the notion that women should have children at all is based on the idea that a woman's inherent and most important role is that of mother. Shockingly, men's 'innate' roles are a lot more fun than the ones bestowed on women. Jessica Valenti mother fun children [Virginity is] a cultural ideology that conflates passivity - the act of not having sex - with superior morality. Jessica Valenti morality ideology sex Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them. Jessica Valenti careful enough There's something really terrible about having your BlackBerry next to your bed or having your laptop in the living room when you're talking to someone. The biggest source of stress in my life is the screen, the blogging. Jessica Valenti laptops stress talking The less obvious hurdle is that of preparing parents emotionally and putting forward realistic images of parenthood and motherhood. There also needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that not everyone should parent - when parenting is a given, it's not fully considered or thought out, and it gives way too easily to parental ambivalence and unhappiness. Jessica Valenti motherhood parent giving Child-rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking. Jessica Valenti child-rearing rearing-a-child children My informal writing style is a political choice, because I want feminism to be more accessible. Jessica Valenti political choices writing I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world. I think, though, for Western feminism and for American feminism, it not so surprisingly continues to center Western feminism and American feminism. And I think the biggest hurdle American feminists have in terms of taking a more global approach is that too often when you hear American feminists talk about international feminism or women in other countries, it kind of goes along with this condescending point of view like we have to save the women of such-and-such country; we have to help them. Jessica Valenti feminist country thinking You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal — it just feels stifling. Jessica Valenti feminist giving-up perfect As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high. Jessica Valenti white pregnancy country There have been women who stumbled across Feministing randomly, through a bizarre Google search or something, and had no idea what feminism was. They thought it was something older women do, or bought into the hairy bra-burning man-hating stereotype 100 percent. Anything that deviates from that is very exciting for them. Jessica Valenti hate men ideas I think that it's incredibly important that we're actually paying attention to the feminism that's going on on the ground in different countries and see what we can do to support the work that's already going on, as opposed to kind of assuming that we know best for women in other areas. Jessica Valenti support country thinking There were a WHOLE LOTTA us not having sex at Harvard . . . but none of us thought that that was special enough to start a club about it, for pete’s sake. Jessica Valenti clubs special sex I hope that by modeling feminism in my own life, work and relationships that it will haut become an organic part of my daughter's life. But I'm also fully prepared for her to become a Republican as a way to rebel as a teenager - that would be just my luck! Jessica Valenti teenager daughter luck
