A few years back, when my style was “punk grandma”, I picked up an amazing pair of sandals – orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I’ve given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more “1980s substitute teacher gone wild.”
BETH DITTOWe weren’t idiots, but I didn’t have that access to academic feminism. I had to realize, on my own, that feminism is not just about how far ahead you can get in a job and it isn’t about not wearing makeup. It isn’t about not watching your waistline. I had to recreate the world entirely.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
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I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter – I just didn’t identify as a songwriter at all.
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I have a very good relationship with myself. My favourite quote is, “What you think about me is none of my business.”
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I am tired of spending a little bit of money in a lot of pieces because they keep on falling apart.
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You’re talking about a major label, we’re talking about serious business; you’re not an artist anymore, you’re a business, you have to work in terms of product, you have to release a product, and I don’t really think that way at all.
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Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.
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Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that’s what stuck to me; it’s like, you really are a factory. You don’t do things to make them, on your own time.
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ABBA was a direct influence on me.
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I love sad songs. They say so much. I love country music but even the happy songs sound really sad.
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Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredible Christian background, and where there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way.
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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.
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Why wear pants when you can wear a muumuu?
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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.
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As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.
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The black bubble dress is a must! The leggings are absolutely amazing too, they fit perfectly and let you breath when still being super high-waisted. They are everything and so easy to pair anything with.
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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