Feminist Quotes | Examples & Tips

Feminist quotes include selected excerpts from literature, speeches, music, or historical texts that empower women, critique patriarchy, and advance gender equality.

They’re perfect messages for sharing on International Women’s Day.

Create personalized feminist quotes with QuillBot’s free Text Generator or pair your favorite quotes with custom graphics using the free Image Generator.

What are feminist quotes?

Feminist quotes include anything that you personally find meaningful and motivating, along with famous lines from literature and history that withstand the text of time.

There are many options to choose from, depending on what feminism means to you. Get inspired with the following feminist quotes:

• Famous feminist quotes
• Fierce and savage feminist quotes
• Short feminist quotes

Famous feminist quotes

Feminism has a long history, and there is a large body of writing associated with it. See if you recognize any of these famous feminist quotes and sayings, which have persisted in contemporary culture.

1. “I did everything he [Fred Astaire] did but backwards and in high heels.” —Ginger Rogers, American actress and dancer

2. “If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.” ―bell hooks, author of Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

3. “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” ―Cheris Kramarae, American scholar of women’s studies

4. “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” ―audre lorde, American writer and professor

5. “Feminism involves so much more than gender equality. And it involves so much more than gender … It has to involve a consciousness of capitalism and racism and colonialism and post colonialities and ability and more genders than we can even imagine.” —Angela Davis

6. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” ―Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and author of The Second Sex

7. “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.” ―Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women

8. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” ―Virginia Woolf, English writer and author of A Room of One’s Own

9. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” —Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and author of Jane Eyre

10. “Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don’t.” ―Rebecca Solnit, American activist and author of Men Explain Things to Me

Fierce and savage feminist quotes

There is also a large body of fierce and savage feminist quotes, in the sense that they speak sharply of women’s oppression—as well as their strength.

1. “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” ―Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer and author of The Handmaid’s Tale

2. “Women have two choices: Either she’s a feminist or a masochist.” —Gloria Steinem, American journalist and activist

3. “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.” ―Lady Gaga, American singer

4. “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” —Charlotte Whitton, Canadian politician

5. “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” —Zora Neale Hurston, American writer and anthropologist

6. “They said, ‘You are a savage and dangerous woman.’ I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.” —Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian writer and activist

7. “Even the unspeakable tortures to which the accused women were subjected acquire a different meaning when we conceive them as a form of exorcism against their powers.” ―Silvia Federici, author of Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women

8. “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture.” —Andrea Dworkin, American writer and activist

9. “Men should be glad women want equality and not revenge.” —Otegha Uwagba, English-Nigerian writer

10. “The waste of intelligence. A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women’s intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn’t realize it.” ―Elena Ferrante, Italian novelist and author of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Short feminist quotes

Short feminist quotes are ideal for sharing in the form of social media graphics or via text message. You can also save them as personal affirmations.

Frequently asked questions about feminist quotes

What are reasons for keeping feminist quotes short and sweet?

Keeping feminist quotes short makes them more shareable online and ensures people will read them.

Sometimes fewer words are more impactful than lengthy excerpts. Some examples include:

“I am a Woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal Woman, / that’s me.” ―Maya Angelou

We are the daughters/granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.” —Tish Thawer author of The Witches of BlackBrook (2015)

Create personalized feminist quotes using QuillBot’s free Text Generator.

What are examples of powerful feminist quotes?

There are many examples of powerful feminist quotes to choose from, such as:

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” ―Cheris Kramarae

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” ―audre lorde

Write powerful feminist quotes using QuillBot’s free Text Generator.