Any action a woman engages in from a spirit of joy, and within a similarly safe and joyous environment, falls within the city-walls of feminism. A girl has a right to dance how she wants, when her favourite record comes on.
If every woman who's had an abortion took tomorrow off in protest, America would grind to a halt. And that would be symbolic: because women grind to a halt if they are not in control of their fertility.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of women's control over their reproductive rights and the societal impact that lack of control can have.
Caitlin Moran's quote highlights the significant role women play in society and how their absence—caused by a lack of autonomy over their own fertility—could create a noticeable disruption. It serves as a powerful reminder that the fight for reproductive rights is not just a personal issue, but one that has broader implications for society as a whole. By asserting their power through an organized protest, women can illustrate just how integral they are to social functioning and progress.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a women's rights rally, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of reproductive rights.
More from Caitlin Moran
All quotes →What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.
People get really scared when women reclaim words, talk about themselves honestly and also make jokes because it's a really unstoppable combination.
For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.
I don't think there should be anything that women are embarrassed to talk about in the 21st century, because for the last 100,000 years, men have said everything that's on their minds and described everything they have done.
A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead.
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I think that any time you get into an area where it requires humility, and accountability, it's gonna get touchy. And so I understand the reality of when someone says something that requires you to look at yourself and change, it's not easy.
We cannot ensure that women will be free of discrimination in the workplace and everywhere as long as women are not universally defended under our Constitution. As it stands now, the equal rights of women are subject to interpretation of law. That is a risk our mothers, sisters and daughters cannot afford.
If you change the environment, you change the people.
The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years have all concurred to lead many men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes.
It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
It is the nature of beginning that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have happened before. This character of startling unexpectedness is inherent in all beginnings.