“Being oppressed means the absence of choices.”
- bell hooks
As one of the greatest thinkers of the modern era, bell hooks taps into an elemental human necessity: the diversity of NASTY WOMAN products available for purchase. All women are beautiful and unique, all with specific desires and dreams — some ladies like NASTY WOMAN T-shirts, some like NASTY WOMAN long-sleeved T-shirts, and others still prefer Nevertheless, SHE PERSISTED T-shirts. It’s a big, beautiful, diverse world of capitalist consumers out there. And we all deserve choices.
“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body.”
- Margaret Sanger
Okay, this one’s a little trickier to unpack. Not all women are able to buy NASTY WOMAN merchandise — others are called upon to, in fact, sell NASTY WOMAN merchandise. Chills. Meditate on that one for a while.
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
- Angela Davis
Angela Davis has been a long-standing, integral voice in the intersectional feminist resistance. To us, who once had to read her work for a class or something, Davis’ early work taps into the profound power of googling “feminist quotes,” slapping them on a throw pillow, selling them for $60 on Etsy and donating maybe like, 10% of proceeds to Planned Parenthood, the only organization that needs help.
“Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to
increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.”
- Angela Davis
What’s that you say? A call for a complete upending of the economic structures that have trampled human rights for centuries? Hm, interesting that your mind went there, but no. What Davis is really trying to say here is, remember when Target did that (RED) campaign to raise money for AIDS research or whatever? Angela Davis wants us, above all, to make something like that, but for feminism. When Davis writes, “a weapon for the wealthy,” what she means is “purchase a self-congratulatory product that allows you to silently tout your ally-ship to every stranger you encounter.” So powerful.
“All oppression creates a state of war.”
- Simone de Beauvoir
We firmly choose to believe that the Second Sex author was a pioneer of pairing open-mouthed, thirsty selfies with vaguely empowering quotes. Of course, this is an extremely important facet of activism. For the French philosopher, all oppression warrants active resistance; Specifically, oppression warrants a cat-eye, tasteful cleavage and the hashtag #IStandWithPlannedParenthood. Beauvoir’s visionary writing has never felt more relevant.
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.
Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
- Margaret Atwood
Atwood’s words hit particularly hard for many women. Perhaps because it’s been posted in Pantsuit Nation, the Facebook group that invented feminism. If we can learn anything from Atwood’s work, it’s that the endgame of feminism is when straight men react “LOVE” to videos of Emma Stone lip-synching to Beyoncé. We’re tearing up just writing this.
“On ne naît pas femme; on le deviant.”
- Simone de Beauvoir
This one means “Facebook activism is enough” in French.
“I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power
as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of
my blackness as well as my womanness, and therefore
my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.”
- Audre Lorde
Mmmmmm, this one’s too long but I’m guessing it means something like, “Congrats on the pussy hat! You did it, you’re officially an activist!” Feel free to correct us! But if you do, we’ll tell you you’re being too aggressive and actually all women should agree with each other or else you’re being anti-feminist.
#RESIST by purchasing a cute, badass T-shirt from your nearest targeted Facebook ad.