Becca Anderson, author of Badass Women Give the Best Advice, has written a blog post where she answers the question: “do we need men?”
For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a nun. Then I realized that what I really wanted to be was a lesbian.
—Mabel Maney, artist, author, and creator of the Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys and Jane Bond parody series
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus, love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
—Emma Goldman, anarchist feminist activist, philosopher, and writer
What do you mean, you “don’t believe in homosexuality”? It’s not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isn’t necessary.
—Lea DeLaria, proud comedian, actor, and jazz musician
I believed that the best way to get to know a woman was to go to bed with her…so pretty much everywhere I’ve lived I’ve had a real bad reputation. But it has gotten me a lot of interesting dates.
—Dorothy Allison, provocative bestselling lesbian author
I’ve had long-term sexual relationships with both men and women. If that classifies me as bisexual, then I’m bisexual.
—Sandra Bernhard, snarky actress, comedian, singer, and author
Tell someone close to you how much you love them, even if you’re sure they already know.
―Becca Badass Anderson
The infantile needs of adult men for women
have been sentimentalized and romanticized long enough as “love”; it is time to recognize them as arrested development.
—Adrienne Rich, acclaimed poet, essayist, and radical feminist
If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?
—Lily Tomlin, inspired lesbian actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer
For her, and her alone, I could have been a lesbian.
—actress and diva Joan Crawford going on about Greta Garbo
My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man, and I’m giving them my share.
—Rita Mae Brown, pioneering lesbian author
In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.
—Simone de Beauvoir, intellectual, writer, philosopher, and social theorist
Badass Women Give the Best Advice
Everything You Need to Know About Love and Life
Advice from girl bosses of all kinds: Women are, far and away, the Oral Sex. Women’s Studies scholar Becca Anderson has gathered the wisdom from a chorus of fabulous femmes for this one-of-a-kind advice book. From housewives to Hollywood starlets, from standup comedians to startup entrepreneurs, these badass women offer unvarnished and unabashed opinions and share their frank and forthright thinking on the wild world of relationships.