Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It’s proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.
BETH DITTOAs a kid, I was always mad – just noticing the women at Thanksgiving, running around the kitchen, while the men were watching football. For one, I don’t want to cook, and for two, I hate football. I was stuck in the middle.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
-
-
Do I ever think Gossip will be really massive in America? No, I don’t think it’ll happen – and that’s fine. It’s kind of nice because I get to experience everything at once. I get to come home and it not be weird, like in Paris or something. It is nice to be completely anonymous.
BETH DITTO -
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.
BETH DITTO -
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 DITTO -
Barack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.
BETH DITTO -
My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character – I am that character… It’s a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I’ve put them all to work onstage.
BETH DITTO -
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.
BETH DITTO -
I’ve had a ton of fast-food jobs – it changes your approach to human interaction forever.
BETH DITTO -
When I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.
BETH DITTO -
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 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 -
The thing about being on the majors, from the beginning, going into this, I was like, “I’m not going to be treated like a factory,” because that’s never the way it was done before.
BETH DITTO -
Why wear pants when you can wear a muumuu?
BETH DITTO -
With a stretch belt, anything can be a dress – a dinner napkin, a tablecloth, even a towel. Just wrap and snap, and away you go in an incredible outfit. Another plus is that the belt will pull all eyes to your lovely curves, and they even look good around a coat or a jacket.
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 -
We 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.
BETH DITTO







