I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn’t understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.
BETH DITTOThere is no shame like poor shame. It can make you warm and charming, bitter and resentful, all at once.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
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I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas – well, not favorite but something I’ve always felt grateful for – was that I really had to dig for what I could. There was no Internet. There wasn’t tons of feminist literature floating around.
BETH DITTO -
Products are a must – full stop. I’m sorry to say it, but that bob won’t look so sleek on its own – you need a little help. It doesn’t have to be the high-end stuff that they sell in the salon. Products you find in the supermarket are just as good, and sometimes better.
BETH DITTO -
I never said I wanted to be a singer for the rest of my life.
BETH DITTO -
Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we’re slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we’re not told growing up, and it’s our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
BETH DITTO -
I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It’s incredible – Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.
BETH DITTO -
I’m 90% performer, 10% musician. I’ve always said that Gossip are a band I would go see, not a band I would listen to.
BETH DITTO -
This archaic idea – that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural – will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous.
BETH DITTO -
If you have a therapist who agrees with your every word, then your brain isn’t getting proper exercise.
BETH DITTO -
When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours, bouffanting my hair like Patty Duke and trying to recreate Barbra Streisand’s flawless eyeliner, only to comb it all out and wash it all off before stepping out into the world a butchish bisexual teen.
BETH DITTO -
I never went to college and I was raised in Arkansas so there wasn’t a lot of academic language being thrown around my house.
BETH DITTO -
When you see a fantastic colour or cut in a magazine, perched up on some famous so-and-so’s head, it’s tempting to ask your stylist for the same, but DO NOT BE FOOLED. The hair in those fancy photos can be very high maintenance.
BETH DITTO -
I am tired of spending a little bit of money in a lot of pieces because they keep on falling apart.
BETH DITTO -
I have a very good relationship with myself. My favourite quote is, “What you think about me is none of my business.”
BETH DITTO -
I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.
BETH DITTO -
I was always being told off at school. The teachers would say: ‘Everyone’s talking, but you’re the one I can hear.
BETH DITTO







