Roxane Gay Feminist Quotations

If a woman wants to take her husband's name, that's her choice, and I still think she can be feminist while doing that.

Beyonce is not above critique. As a feminist herself, I hope Beyonce would welcome it.

It's an amusing idea to some, this feminism thing - this audacious notion that women should be able to move through the world as freely, and enjoy the same inalienable rights and bodily autonomy, as men. At least, that's the impression given when feminism and feminists are all too often the targets of lazy humor.

I am failing as a woman. I am failing as a feminist. To freely accept the feminist label would not be fair to good feminists. If I am, indeed, a feminist, I am a rather bad one. I am a mess of contradictions.

I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences.

People don't want to think... I mean, they don't! They just want to say, 'Oh, okay, feminists are humorless man-haters,' and that's simply not the case. There are radical people and radical ideas in absolutely every movement, but that doesn't mean they define the ideals.

I love romantic comedies. I know how terrible they are, but I love them! And I don't think that makes me less of a feminist.

I am a bad feminist and a good woman. I am trying to become better in how I think and say and do - without abandoning what makes me human.

I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.

I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism.

I would love for everyone to be a feminist, but I have to respect people's choices. If you don't want to be a feminist and don't want to claim feminism, that's entirely your right.

I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing.