Valenti Quotes & Sayings

I think feminism is taking off. It's just not visible in the way that we would like it to be. — Jessica Valenti

By erasing any nuance and complexity about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn't seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there's no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives. — Jessica Valenti

Obviously Feministing is kind of a women's space in a certain way, even though we have a lot of male readership and people who don't identify as women. — Jessica Valenti

I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they're playing, and they're teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can't wait to put my kid in day care because I could see how much they loved it. — Jessica Valenti

As Feministing commenter electron-Blue noted in response to the 2008 New York Times Magazine article "Students of Virginity," on abstinence clubs at Ivy League colleges, "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

I've seen straight, partnered women explain their decision to stay at home by noting that childcare would have taken too much out of their paycheck - as if this cost was just theirs to bear! — Jessica Valenti

If You Cannot Protect What You Own, You Don't Own Anything! — Jack Valenti

I don't get much career advice at all, and I would like some. — Jessica Valenti

Consider another abstinence product: a gold rose pin handed out in schools or at Christian youth events. The pin is attached to a small card that reads, "You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage is pre-marital sex a previous petal is stripped away. Don't leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain."Do we really want to teach our daughters that without their virginity they're nothing but a "bare stem"? — Jessica Valenti

Film-makers must decide what story to tell and how to tell it. — Jack Valenti

Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control. — Jessica Valenti

Women who are harassed, at work, on the street, or even online, are subject to the same rigid purity standards as women who are sexually assaulted, Just by virtue of being out in public, we're overstepping certain boundaries. — Jessica Valenti

If you don't identify as a feminist, you're missing out on this whole community that's out there that could really help you with your work, help you with your personal life, and just give you support. — 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? — Jessica Valenti

Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. — Jessica Valenti

I've been thinking a lot about Lady Gaga and what she means for feminism. I think - I find her completely fascinating, and I really like what she has to say. — Jessica Valenti

Idea at play here is that of "morality." When young women are taught about morality, there's not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens — Jessica Valenti

I am tired of faking confidence or being told that my lack thereof is a fault when it seems to me the most natural reaction I could possibly have to the lifelong feedback women are given. I don't want to be confident or inspirational and I don't really want to buck up anymore because the faking takes more energy sometimes than the work itself. — Jessica Valenti

I think that the ideal of parenting can make people unhappy. It's that this lie that they're being told by society that parenting is one thing - and when parenting is something completely different - that's what makes them unhappy. — Jessica Valenti

I have not lived for millennia to be bested by a half-blood whore and her puppet prince." ~ Valenti — Pippa DaCosta

I'm talking about the soul-crushing drudgery of day-to-day parenthood that we're too embarrassed to talk about. The boredom, the stress, the nagging dissatisfaction, and the sense of personal failure that parents feel when raising a kid isn't all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps worst of all is the guilt that so many women buy into because they're too ashamed to admit that despite the love they have for their kids, child rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking. — Jessica Valenti

When I started blogging in 2004, I responded to every comment no matter how nasty the reader was. I was generally polite, believing that these critics would be so charmed by my professionalism that they would see the error of their misogynist ways and swiftly run out to read a bell hooks book. Ha! — Jessica Valenti

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

Men in their hearts hate women. It doesn't matter how much we love them. They hate us — Jessica Valenti

According to pop culture, women are either searching for a man, with a man, or getting over one. — Jessica Valenti

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

It is called the First Amendment ... Simple words marching in seried ranks. Compact, concise. To the point. Clear and pure. It's freedom's music. — Jack Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

I think that online harassment has become so ubiquitous on the Internet that a lot of women do feel safer, whatever that means, in spaces where they know like people are not going to bother them in that kind of way. — Jessica Valenti

It's not always easy being a full-time feminist - especially as a young woman - when you're constantly being told that what you do is irrelevant. I'm on the defense all the time. — Jessica Valenti

Yes, the more successful you are - or the stronger, the more opinionated - the less you will be generally liked. All of a sudden people will think you're too braggy, too loud, too something. But the trade-off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it. — Jessica Valenti

Women politicians have definitely been known to fuck over other women. Democratic Louisiana — Jessica Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

What's the difference between venerating women for being fuckable and putting them on a purity pedestal? In both cases, women's worth is contingent upon their ability to please men and to shape their sexual identities around what men want. — Jessica Valenti

Wedding fever is one of the scariest diseases I have ever seen. — Jessica Valenti

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners. — Jessica Valenti

What's the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don't hold back, now.
You're probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I've even heard the term "mangina."
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that's not royally fucked up. — Jessica Valenti

For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a "good" (i.e. "moral) girl and therefore worthy of praise. — Jessica Valenti

Greetings, half blood. You have gained power, I see. Asmodeus will be pleased." "Asmodeus can go fuck himself. — Pippa DaCosta

Stress from blogging keeps me up at night. — Jessica Valenti

I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president. — Jack Valenti

I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs, the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that. — Jack Valenti

The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough. — Jessica Valenti

If movies are causing moral decay, then crime ought to be going up, but crime is going down. — Jack Valenti

Girls "going wild" aren't damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. The lie of virginity - the idea that such a thing even exists - is ensuring that young women's perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people , not on whether or not they're sexually active ... so while young women are subject to overt sexual messages everyday, they're simultaneously being taught - by the people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less - that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain "pure". — Jessica Valenti

It seems odd that we continue to worry about the reputations of men who are accused of sexual wrong-doings. — Jessica Valenti

Foreign capital to build new cinemas will help modernize China's aging cinema infrastructure, attract Chinese consumers back into cinemas, and increase demand for U.S. films. — Jack Valenti

The studies about differences between the sexes that you see kind of get propped up in the media are more often than not denigrating women in some way, saying that women really don't have any spatial understanding, and that's why they can't park. — Jessica Valenti

I think that we're our own worst enemies in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to doing work where you're criticized a lot or doing work where there's a lot of hater directed at you; and to not constantly second-guess yourself. — Jessica Valenti

If being premenstrual is "innocence," does that make those of us with periods guilty? And this really gets to the heart of the matter: These concerns aren't about lost innocence; they're about lost girlhood. The virginity movement doesn't want women to be adults.

Despite the movement's protestations about how this focus on innocence or preserving virginity is just a way of protecting girls, the truth is, it isn't a way to desexualize them. It simply positions their sexuality as "good" - worth talking about, protecting, and valuing - and women's sexuality, adult sexuality, as bad and wrong. The (perhaps) unintended consequences of this focus is that girl's sexuality is sexualized and fetishized even further. — Jessica Valenti

People seem to think, because of the way that the media has appropriated third-wave feminism or young feminism, that all young feminists are about is like pole dancing and girls gone wild and how empowering it is. Like they'll start calling anything feminist. — Jessica Valenti

There is no public space for women; the whole world is a prison where you have to be constantly aware at all times that you're a potential victim. What's more terrifying is that it's not necessarily preventative. — Jessica Valenti

People ask me a lot, 'Well, can you be pro-life and be feminist? Can you be conservative and be feminist?' And I think that, yeah, maybe personally you can be those things. But I think if you're advocating for legislation, or if you're fighting to limit other women's rights, then you can't really call yourself a feminist. — Jessica Valenti

Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason. — Jessica Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

Ignoring men, whether romantically or rhetorically, is existential violence to them. — Jessica Valenti

When I did get married, and specifically after I got married and the New York Times style section featured my wedding in the vows column, which is really traditionally kind of seen as an elitist column, and it is, but I was happy to be in it. I thought it was good that they were covering a feminist wedding. — Jessica Valenti

When it comes to people who are saying really extreme things online, we have the tendency to think that they are just kooks, or that you shouldn't pay attention to them, you shouldn't take them seriously. — Jessica Valenti

If 'feminism' can mean anything from behaving like a man (Miller), being pro-choice (Valenti), being pro-life (Palin), and being pro-war (the Republican administration), then we may simply need to abandon the term, or at the very least, restrict its usage to those situations in which we make quite certain we explain what we mean by it. — Nina Power

I enjoyed 'Roswell' a lot, and I had a lot of fun playing Jim Valenti. I had never done a show that lasted as long as that - that one lasted three years. — William Sadler

I'm really aware of how feminism and feminist rhetoric has been appropriated by the right. — Jessica Valenti

No one today knows what is indecent. — Jack Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

People are not going to give up marriage. But we can try to make it more fair. We can try to change that institution and make it more equal. — Jessica Valenti

Be as pissed off as you want to be. Don't hold back because you think it's unladylike or some such nonsense. We shouldn't be shamed out of our anger. We should be using it. Using it to make change in our own lives, and using it to make change in the lives around us. (I know, I'm cheesy.) So the next time someone calls you emotional, or asks if you're PMSing, call them on their bullshit. — Jessica Valenti

I do think that we have this incredible opportunity because being on-line - the Internet is a relatively new space - we do have this incredible opportunity to change that dynamic, to make sure that women are present in all sorts of spaces, not just women-only spaces. — Jessica Valenti

Beautiful' is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we're second-class citizens. — Jessica Valenti

As much as I disagree with Sarah Palin, there's no denying that she was the victim of sexism. — Jessica Valenti

According to the virginity movement, men have no self-control when it comes to anything sexual. — Jessica Valenti

It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active. — Jessica Valenti

If there's an article about sexual assault, if there's a video about feminism on YouTube, you're going to get the most horrible, disgusting comments ever. And sometimes the comments are pornographic, and sometimes the comments are really harassing. So I think that it's kind of a difficult place for women to write sometimes. — Jessica Valenti

Social media is not just another way to connect feminist and activist voices - it amplifies our messages as well. — Jessica Valenti

I've always found the idea of 'saving' your virginity intriguing: it's not as if we're packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting - and dangerous - idea at play here is that of 'morality. When young women are taught about morality, there's not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined - think 'virginity' and 'chastity'): if we have them, when we'll lose them, and under what circumstances we'll be rid of them. — Jessica Valenti

You come to a point where you give up on holding yourself to a perfect feminist ideal - it just feels stifling. — Jessica Valenti

If what you own cannot be protected, you own nothing. — Jack Valenti

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

The implications of likability are long-lasting and serious. Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world. And this desire to be liked and accepted goes beyond the boardroom - it's an issue that comes up for women in their personal lives as well, especially as they become more opinionated and outspoken. — Jessica Valenti

There is something to be said for the power of figureheads. After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, a record number of countries posted female ambassadors to the U.S. - some of whom have dubbed this 'the Hillary effect.' — Jessica Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

I think the idea that feminism is dead is dangerous because it leads women and men to believe that (1) they don't have to do anything; the work has been done, and that everything is okay now; and (2) it leaves them kind of alone, I think, in a struggle, and that's something I've seen a lot when I go to colleges and I speak to young women. — Jessica Valenti

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. — Jessica Valenti

You're the half-sister of the full-blood demon, Valenti. The illegitimate child of Asmodeus - one of the Seven Princes of Hell. You were sold at birth as a plaything for lesser demons."
"A half-blood abomination," he snarled. "An embarrassment to demons everywhere. By all rights, you should be dead. — Pippa DaCosta

All women live in objectification the way fish live in water. - Catharine A. MacKinnon WHEN — Jessica Valenti

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 real word for men who kill women. Is the word just "men"? — Jessica Valenti

Being treated nicely felt wrong somehow, as if we were acting out what a relationship should be rather than being in it. For men who hate women, an admission like this one is proof that see, women want a guy who treats them like shit but that's not true either. What is closer to the truth is that when confronted with the love you deserve, it is easier to mock it than accept it. — Jessica Valenti

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

My problem with the wedding industry started when I studied in college and liked to have the television on in the background, and 'A Wedding Story' on TLC always came on, and I'd get irritated that the story of two people making a lifelong commitment to each other could be encapsulated in a half-hour show about the party they throw. — Jessica Valenti

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

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 solve any larger problems. — Jessica Valenti

When you ask most American parents why they want to have kids, it's to bring more joy into their lives. So, when you don't feel that all-encompassing joy, it must be that something is wrong with you. I think it's dissatisfaction that the expectation was different than the reality. — Jessica Valenti

Edgar Allan Poe once called the death of a beautiful woman "the most poetical topic in the world" and I've often found myself wondering how many woman writers who have killed themselves or let themselves be otherwise obliterated were trying, somehow, to fulfill 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. I'm — Jessica Valenti

I grew up in Long Island City. When I was growing up, my parents owned a women's clothing store in Queens. It was for older women. I got my bras there, until I realized I didn't want those huge, taupe bras. Everything was beige, with massive amounts of hooks. — Jessica Valenti

Men take what women make and claim it as their own.Men don't love childrenThey kill them in a heartbeat to hurt a woman — Jessica Valenti

What is closer to the truth is that when confronted with the love you deserve, it is easier to mock it than accept it. Especially when everything else you have experienced of love and connection is based on something more like control or disdain. — Jessica Valenti

People say that your life flashes before your eyes before you die, but they're wrong. It's not your life that passes before you, it's the regrets that do. — Elise Valenti

I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world. — Jessica Valenti

There isn't anything in the world that can't be made better. — Jack Valenti

As a kid, I wasn't sure that I would ever get married - I was not the kind of little girl who played at being a bride. — Jessica Valenti

In 'The Purity Myth,' I not only discuss what the purity myth is and reveal its consequences for women, but also outline a new way for us to think about young women as moral actors, one that doesn't include their bodies. — Jessica Valenti

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