“More and more women are realizing that only collective strength and action will allow us to be free to fight for the kind of society that meets basic human needs.”

Roxanne Dunbar

“I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.”

Madonna

“I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.”

Jane Austen

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”

Toni Morrison

“It’s important to teach our female youth that it’s OK to say, ‘Yes, I am good at this,’ and you don’t hold back.”

Simone Biles

Justice is about making sure that being polite is not the same thing as being quiet. In fact, often times, the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“Women’s speech—and the fact that we are now listening to it—has enraged men in a way that makes them determined to reestablish the longstanding hierarchy of power in America. … And yet this awful truth will not stop women from speaking, and I do not think that it will turn a movement into a moment. It has become clear that there is not nearly enough left to lose.”

Jia Tolentino

“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

The Cohambee River Collective

“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious—or whatever we please. We are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.

Naomi Wolf

“Women will be hidden no more. We will not remain hidden figures. We have names. … It was woman that gave you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was woman that gave you Malcolm X. And according to the Bible, it was a woman that gave you Jesus. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Janelle Monáe

“You could make a case that, along with the technological revolution, the most provocative upending destabilizing thrilling change in the course of human history is that we’re finally in it. … We’re here now, women are in the world, and we will not be bullied.”

Meryl Streep

“My movement is my movement. When all the dust has settled on the groundbreaking-ness, I’m going to still be doing this. I’m not going to suddenly change. I’m going to still be telling my life story through music. And if that’s body-positive to you, amen. If that’s feminist to you, amen. If that’s pro-black to you, amen. Because ma’am, I’m all of those things.”

Lizzo

“Whether I am meant to or not, I challenge assumptions about women. I do make some people uncomfortable, which I’m well aware of, but that’s just part of coming to grips with what I believe is still one of the most important pieces of unfinished business in human history—empowering women to be able to stand up for themselves.”

Hillary Clinton

The more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

Emma Watson

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.

Maya Angelou

“Women need a seat at the table, they need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases, where this is not available, they need to create their own table. We need a global understanding that we cannot implement change effectively without women’s political participation.”

Meghan Markle

There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.

Rihanna

“I can promise you that women working together – linked, informed and educated – can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.”

Isabelle Allende

“I want to build a community where women of all races can communicate and continue to support and take care of each other. I want to give women a space to feel their own strength and tell their stories. That is power.”

Beyoncé

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.”

Madeleine Albright

Women are always saying, ‘We can do anything that men can do.’ But men should be saying, ‘We can do anything that women can do.’

Gloria Steinem