262 Quotes by Jessica Valenti

The cultural insistence that parenting is the ‘most important’ job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them.

People seem to think, because of the way that the media has appropriated third-wave feminism or young feminism, that all young feminists are about is like pole dancing and girls gone wild and how empowering it is. Like they’ll start calling anything feminist.

I revisit old favorites like ‘Buffy’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ when I’m bored. I am obsessed with ‘Scandal.’ I love TV.

In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries – or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.

What is closer to the truth is that when confronted with the love you deserve, it is easier to mock it than accept it. Especially when everything else you have experienced of love and connection is based on something more like control or disdain.

I’m talking about the soul-crushing drudgery of day-to-day parenthood that we’re too embarrassed to talk about. The boredom, the stress, the nagging dissatisfaction, and the sense of personal failure that parents feel when raising a kid isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps worst of all is the guilt that so many women buy into because they’re too ashamed to admit that despite the love they have for their kids, child rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.

There’s a reason why the assumed goal for women in virginity-movement screeds is marriage and motherhood only: The movement only believes that’s the only thing women are meant for.

Yes, the more successful you are – or the stronger, the more opinionated – the less you will be generally liked. All of a sudden people will think you’re too braggy, too loud, too something. But the trade-off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it.

And there’s an argument to be made that if intentional and thoughtful parenthood is an indicator of parental and family happiness, then having gay parents – parents who weren’t able to “accidentally” have a child – may be, in fact, among the better circumstances there are for a child.