Feminism key thinkers' quotes

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“To work is not only a right, it is a duty. To work to the full capacity of one's powers is necessary for human development.” 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“the economic independence of women is the only basis of freedom.”

Simone de Beauvoir

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

Simone de Beauvoir

“...her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly” – the Second Sex (1949)

Sheila Rowbotham

"It is only when women start to organise in large numbers that we become apolitical force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society" – Women, Resistance and Revolution (1972)

Kate Millett

“male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger“ - Sexual Politics (1970)

Kate Millett

patriarchy operates in “every dimension of social life.”

Kate Millett

“the family is patriarchy’s chief institution”

bell hooks

“Why would women want to be equal to men within a system that oppresses both?” - Feminist Theory: from margin to centre (1984)

bell hooks

Feminism is a “movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.”

bell hooks

“white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”

Mary Wollstonecraft (not key thinker)

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves“ - A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

John Stuart Mill (not key thinker)

“what is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing“ , “The Subjection of Women“ (1869)

Shulamith Firestone (not key thinker)

’feminist materialism’