Hilda Solis

Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.

If we want our daughters to dream bigger than we did we still have work to do.

There needs to be more variety on television so young girls growing up don’t feel pressured to look one specific way. Tall, thin, curvy, short, whatever you are, you are beautiful.

Little girls think it’s necessary to put all their business on MySpace and Facebook, and I think it’s a shame… I’m all about mystery.

I think it’s a wonderful time for a woman.

I am a woman with thoughts and questions and sh*t to say. I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story – I will.

To all my goddesses in the world spreading love and light, power and radiance. Never stop being brilliant!!

What sometimes is missing for young girls is that so early in our lives we’re shushed. And not just directly shushed. Sometimes we’re treated a little too preciously. They treat us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings, equal partners. I was loved early by my father, but I was never so precious that he didn’t think I could be there at the table.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

I love to challenge the status quo. That’s been my mission from day one as an actress and an early feminist wanting equality and wanting to push the limits of what’s possible.

My first instinct is great pride for all of us as women who are finding our voices.

If you’re someone who genuinely believes that women don’t deserve or aren’t as much as men, you’re like the plague. On the big history chart, you’re the plague … it’s just pointless and deadly.

[Feminism] means that you believe in the equality of the sexes in every way.

A strong woman looks a challenge in the eye and gives it a wink.

I’m trying to do my part as a citizen. My part as a Hispanic. My part as a woman. As an American. I enjoy it. I think everybody should be civically engaged in a level that will affect policy. That’s the point. That how our government is set up.