10 Quotes From Bad Feminist That Will Change How You Think

Bad Feminist is a collection of essays on feminism by Roxane Gay. It is one of the most interesting books I’ve read recently. Here are some of my favorite excerpts. I hope you find them as thought-provoking as I did.

1. “I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
2. “Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses — pretty but designed to SLOW women down.”
3. “To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected. What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.”
4. “If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities.”
5. “It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.”
6. “I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I choose to err on that side of caution. This does not mean I am unsympathetic to the wrongly accused, but if there are sides to be chosen, I am on the side of the victim.”
7. “Don’t flirt, have sex, or engage in emotional affairs with your friends’ significant others. This shouldn’t need to be said, but it needs to be said. That significant other is an asshole, and you don’t want to be involved with an asshole who’s used goods. If you want to be with an asshole, get a fresh asshole of your very own. They are abundant.”
8. “When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example.”
9. “It’s hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you’re not imagining things. It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it’s that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.”
10. “Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.”

Thanks for reading, and I hope this has left you feeling a little bit wiser.