Notes From a Feminist Killjoy Quotes

“So one of my responsibilities, as a white, cis-gendered woman, is to learn how to be a traitor to the 'joys' of patriarchal culture that I experience, however unconsciously.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“Still, when I think of early friendships, I think not of people but of books. Books were my friends, and more often than not, the characters in the books were my imaginary friends, who stepped out of the pages and walked wth me to school or sat in bed with me, talking when I was meant to be asleep. What I mean is reading was my friends. And also I mean that I learned about friendship - patience, slowness, listening, care - from reading and from reading about friendship between people.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“Smugness in ones own self-knowledge is often a signal that you don't know as much as you think you do.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“Perhaps feminist is a bit like walking purposefully through a crowd.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“Not all friendships are meant to last, I suppose. Not ever with books”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“What I read in her words is a caution. Don't let your anger - especially if it is righteous, especially if you know you're on the side of right - fool you into thinking that it makes you right. Don't be precious about your anger, warns Ahmed. Don't let your anger become a site of oppression - for you, for others- when it can be a site of struggle. Don't let your own experience of anger - feminist, justified, understandable - become totemic. Don't let your anger be a stopping point.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“We learn quickly that, like a spectre, the possibility of rape is everywhere at once. We are taught that, like a spectre, rape is almost impossible to pin down.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“Happiness as restricted access. Happiness as a country club, a resort, an old boys club for certain boys only. Happiness as body shame, as racism, as transphobia, as misogyny. These are some joys that need killing.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life

“The feminist killjoy takes pleasure in the work of interrupting the patriarchal norms that pass as joy.
Burn it down! She gleefully lights the match.”
― Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life