Jessica Valenti Quotations | Page 2

I grew up definitely a feminist, but I didn't call myself a feminist until I took my first women's studies class in college.

If you go to places like YouTube, it's a cesspool, and a lot of the comments are really horrifying and misogynist and harassing.

I've been thinking a lot about Lady Gaga and what she means for feminism. I think - I find her completely fascinating, and I really like what she has to say.

I do think that we have this incredible opportunity because being on-line - the Internet is a relatively new space - we do have this incredible opportunity to change that dynamic, to make sure that women are present in all sorts of spaces, not just women-only spaces.

I think feminism is taking off. It's just not visible in the way that we would like it to be.

The Internet is the new public space. And because women are out in public, people don't like that in much the same way that if you're walking down the street you get harassed. I think the same kind of thing happens online, and I think that's why a lot of women are hesitant to put their voice out there.

If there's an article about sexual assault, if there's a video about feminism on YouTube, you're going to get the most horrible, disgusting comments ever. And sometimes the comments are pornographic, and sometimes the comments are really harassing. So I think that it's kind of a difficult place for women to write sometimes.

People aren't comfortable thinking of women as people. Like we're not people, we're women, and that means something completely different, especially when you have power.

I think that online harassment has become so ubiquitous on the Internet that a lot of women do feel safer, whatever that means, in spaces where they know like people are not going to bother them in that kind of way.

I think that the ideal of young womanhood as it's seen in pop culture specifically is a really kind of vapid, conceited, concerned with money and looks kind of thing that you'll see in a lot of reality shows. And I think that's really damaging, not just because it's a terrible role model to put forth, but that it also puts across this idea to the American public that this is what young women are like, that this is what all young women in America are like.