“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.”

“It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.”

“I believe the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st Century.”

“I’m a feminist. I’ve been a female for a long time now. It’d be stupid not to be on my own side.”

“Who run the world? Girls.”

“My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet, is that they all realise their worth and ask for it.”

“I don’t really like being in the centre of attention. I’m not used to that. All my life I have been like the invisible girl at the back that no one sees or listens to.”

“Women are leaders everywhere you look -- from the CEO who runs a Fortune 500 company to the housewife who raises her children and heads her household. Our country was built by strong women, and we will continue to break down walls and defy stereotypes."

“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”

“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.” 

“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

“Feminism is not a dirty word. It does not mean you hate men, it does not mean you hate girls that have nice legs and a tan, and it does not mean you are a ‘bitch’ or ‘dyke’; it means you believe in equality.”    

“My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it’s very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.”       

Martina Navratilova Tennis Player

“If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.”

“We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.”

"I’d like every man who doesn’t call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn’t believe in equality for women.”

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”

“I think every woman in our culture is a feminist. They may refuse to articulate it, but if you were to take any woman back 40 years and say, ‘Is this a world you want to live in?’, they would say ‘No.’”

“The idea of being a feminist- so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex – but what feminism is about is equality and human rights.”

“We cannot expect in the immediate future that all women who seek it will achieve full equality of opportunity. But if women are to start moving towards that goal, we must believe in ourselves or no one else will believe in us; we must match our aspirations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed.”

“There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver.”

“There’s many women now who think, ‘Surely we don’t need feminism anymore, we’re all liberated and society’s accepting us as we are.’ Which is all hogwash. It’s not true at all.”

 

“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.”

“Women are still treated as secondary issues. It is still far too easy and accepted for leaders to ignore uncomfortable truths… Women, we know, are the first to be affected by war, and the last to be taken into account when it ends.”

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

“I always say, women have brains and uteruses, and are able to use both."

“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious – or whatever we please. We are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.”

“The best way for us to cultivate fearlessness in our daughters and other young women is by example. If they see their mothers and other women in their lives going forward despite fear, they'll know it's possible.”

“I think it’s great that the discussions are finally being allowed to be had, as opposed to anybody mentioning feminism and everybody going, ‘Oh, f***ing shut up.’ Somehow, it became a dirty word. I thought it was really weird for a long time, and I think it’s great that we’re coming out of that.”

 

“It is only through my daughter that I have come to realise that a life without femininity – devoid of mystery, emotion, gentleness and the unerring power of a woman’s love – is no life at all.”

“I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have.”

“Do you have a vagina? And do you want to be in charge of it? If you said ‘yes’ to both, then congratulations – you’re a feminist!”

“I’ve never met a woman who is not strong, but sometimes they don’t let it out. Then there’s a tragedy, and then all of a sudden that strength comes. My message is let the strength come out before the tragedy.”

"As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world."

“Women are always told, 'You're not going to make it, it’s too difficult, you can't do that, don't enter this competition, you'll never win it,' - they need confidence in themselves and people around them to help them to get on.”

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”

“I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.”

“The emerging woman ... will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied...strength and beauty must go together.”

“The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power.”

“Value yourself for what the media doesn't - your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it's not just valuing yourself for your ability to look hot in a bikini and be available to men, it's an improvement.”

“We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means, but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.”

“I think some big actors and musicians feel like they have to speak to their audience and that word [feminism] is confusing to their audience. But I don’t get it. That’s like someone being like, ‘I don’t really believe in cars, but I drive one every day and I love that it gets me places and makes life so much easier and faster and I don’t know what I would do without it.”

“A woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression."

As an artist, I never wanted to be fettered by gender nor recognised or defined as a female poet, musician or singer. They don’t do that with men - nobody says Picasso, the male artist. Curators call me up and say, “We want your work to be in a show about women artists,” and I’m like, why? For Christ’s sake, do we have to attach a gender onto everything?