Jessica Valenti Quotes

I think that's the most dangerous kind of sexism: People don't realize it's there and we end up surreptitiously accepting it because it's just part of our culture. I've never experienced explicit, overt, confrontational sexism personally.

Sexism kind of predisposes us to see men's work as more important than women's, and it is a problem, I guess, as writers, we have to change.

The sexism in Hollywood is not particularly overt - because the system is good at hiding it.

Once in a while, I still witness occasionally sexist behavior and comments from men (which experience has taught me you should always deflect with humour rather than anger). Old habits die hard, after all, and it's unrealistic to expect dinosaurs to fall silent overnight.

Men still get a lot more opportunity. It is still a big part of the old boy network. They have more companies they can get money from.

I'm beginning to think I have two years encountering sexism without really realising it.

In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are - about luck and identity and how the idea struck them.

[Concerning] the promotion of women. The system was designed by men and I am told constantly that "we have no women who are ready yet " for promotion. I can break that through perseverance—but it is an example of the system frustrating our purposes rather than serving them.

To be white and male is not to be sexist and racist.

There's no doubt that the patriarchy that we live in also controls the movie industry. The heads of the studios are men, and it's reflected in the scripts they buy and the work that gets made.

The entire world is skewed from the white male perspective. If you're a woman, they have to say it's a female-driven comedy. If it's a comedy with Latinos in it, it's a Latino comedy. 'Normal' is white male, and I find that to be shocking and ridiculous.

I'd never had a mentor in Hollywood. Men have always been in control of the business, and they usually mentor people who are like them - but two inches shorter.

I've become aware of being in a very male-dominated industry where a door opens and it's like, 'Oh hello, it's 12 men and me. Again.'

If you're a white male growing up in this society, you're constantly receiving encouragement to go on in science in the form of all the images that you're receiving.

In the modern workplace, sexism has adopted a more subtle persona; therefore, people can be accused of sexism where it's far harder to determine whether they're actually committing sexism or thinking in a sexist way.

Sexism is deeply rooted in our history and society that waking up and stepping outside of it is like I'm watching 'Night of the Living Dead Part Two' all day, every day.

One of my favorite stories is, I got fired off 'Bionic Woman' in part because I was told that I don't know how to write women, and they promptly replaced me with a guy. What I find lovely about the story is how unaware the white dude who said that to me was when he said it.

It doesn't matter how many women we get into game production. If the only people evaluating the work we do continue to be men, women's voices will never be heard.

I find that as a female boss in the music industry, it's difficult to actually be treated as if you actually are the boss and to have people act on your instructions and take you seriously. Like you call up people who are working for you and say, "I'd like to see such-and-such document," and they tell you that you don't need it. Then you have to spend time convincing them that it doesn't matter whether they think you need it or not, they're supposed to hand it to you.

I think being a woman in Hollywood is a big enough challenge. It really is. I don't want to be one of those people who complain. But the lack of roles out there - it's unbelievable.

The subtlest and most vicious aspect of women's oppression is that we have been conditioned to believe we are not oppressed, blinded so as not to see our own condition.

I have always firmly believed that every director should be judged solely by their work, and not by their work based on their gender. Hollywood is supposedly a community of forward thinking and progressive people yet this horrific situation for women directors persists. Gender discrimination stigmatizes our entire industry. Change is essential. Gender neutral hiring is essential.

Every time a journalist will say: "Can women be funny? Can women be pilots? Can women be scientists?" It's less of a question and more of a statement after a while that makes you believe that maybe we can't. I think that's dangerous. I was really happy that I didn't have those barriers, but now I recognize the barriers of many other people.

My theory of everything is that we are training kids to have gender bias against girls, therefore when you are an adult, you don't see it. We think it's normal.

I want to re-visit everything. We're people and we're so different. I think it would just be nice if it wasn't just like, "Eww, women." That would be a big thing for me.