Since Reagan there has been this tradition, which has become a cliche, of promising morning in America, this fake optimism, we’re the best, the city on the hill. In fact the great American task is self-scrutiny. – Naomi Wolf
Citizens who live or work near protest sites or marches have every right to be free of violence from protesters, and they should never be subjected to destruction of property. – Naomi Wolf
Victorian feminists made the mistake of making membership of the sisterhood conditional on signing up to a particular policy agenda. Marxist feminists made a similar mistake of saying, ‘You can’t be a real feminist unless you join with miners, the unions, the vegans.’ – Naomi Wolf
Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria. – Naomi Wolf
French existentialism is an unhelpful philosophy in which to couch modern feminism: born from the ravages of the Second World War, it is a cynical, individualistic school of thought that posits the self and personal choice as the measure of life’s entire meaning. – Naomi Wolf
I don’t think most men do hate women at all – I think most men are trying their best and facing a culturation into masculine behaviour that forces them to deny their own humanity and to exaggerate distance from the world of women. – Naomi Wolf
After we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. – Naomi Wolf
‘The End of America’ details the 10 steps that would-be dictators always take in seeking to close an open society; it argued that the Bush administration had been advancing each one. – Naomi Wolf
‘Beauty’ is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact. – Naomi Wolf
In 70s America, protest used to be very effective, but in subsequent decades municipalities have sneakily created a web of ‘overpermiticisation’ – requirements that were designed to stifle freedom of assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances, both of which are part of our first amendment. – Naomi Wolf
The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right. – Naomi Wolf
Peaceful, lawful protest – if it is effective – is innately disruptive of ‘business as usual.’ That is why it is effective. – Naomi Wolf
From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for ‘perfection.’ – Naomi Wolf
How is it even sustainable in 21st-century America that women earn, on average, 77 cents for every dollar earned by men? – Naomi Wolf
Since Madonna is positioned as always ‘cooler than thou,’ we all are primed for schadenfreude if something in her fabulous life goes amiss. – Naomi Wolf
My job is to notice echoes and notice resonances. Scientists are not supposed to do the same thing that cultural critics do. – Naomi Wolf
We are all Julian Assange. Serious reporters discuss classified information every day – go to any Washington or New York dinner party where real journalists are present, and you will hear discussion of leaked or classified information. That is journalists’ job in a free society. – Naomi Wolf
What we should notice is that studies show that fathers’ presence in their children’s lives has a marked effect on how well their kids do later in life, so why aren’t we asking how we can better liberate men from the workplace to be home with their kids more often? – Naomi Wolf
The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don’t lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment. – Naomi Wolf
In the U.S., the ’50s and ’60s marked the documentary’s golden age, especially at CBS, where pioneering television journalist Edward R. Murrow, immortalised in George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck,’ produced such landmark investigations as the CBS Reports programme ‘Hunger in America.’ – Naomi Wolf
The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. – Naomi Wolf