hardingkerriganrpf:

“Patriarchy has always had room for the Exceptional Woman — the one woman smart enough, sweet enough, strong enough, soft enough, pure enough, sexy enough to satisfy all of our culture’s contradictory demands on women, and thus make it to the top of a sexist system on merit alone. Patriarchy needs that woman. She provides men with an excuse to blame women for their own pain and struggles while simultaneously assuring women that sexism only needs to be outwitted to be overcome. She tells us that the system is survivable for women — you simply have to be the right kind of woman.”

— Sady Doyle, on the myth of the Exceptional Woman (via madlori)