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 ValentiRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Seeking approval from others can lead to a loss of one's true self and autonomy.
In this quote, Jessica Valenti emphasizes the dangers of prioritizing external validation for personal worth. By trying to conform to the expectations and opinions of others, an individual can become a mere background character in their own life, losing sight of their own desires and values, ultimately leading to a lack of self-identity and control over their self-esteem.
Themes
Self-WorthValidationIdentityControlSelf-Esteem
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about finding inner strength and self-acceptance.
More from Jessica Valenti
All quotes →Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
Jessica ValentiRead
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 ValentiRead
When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.
Jessica ValentiRead
Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
Jessica ValentiRead
The widely held belief that the heterosexual nuclear family is best for children has long been used as a smoke screen for homophobia and as a talking point to quash marriage-equality efforts.
Jessica ValentiRead
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