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Gender Roles Quotes

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Gender Roles Quotes

“Yes, despite his shortcomings she envied young Roger with his thick, clumping boots, his cropped hair and his Etons; envied his school and his masculine companions of whom he would speak grandly as: 'all the other fellows!'; envied his right to climb trees and play cricket and football—his right to be perfectly natural; above all she envied his splendid conviction that being a boy constituted a privilege in life; she could well understand that conviction, but this only increased her envy.”

BoysGenderEnvyGirlsMasculinityGender RolesTomboys
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“He said, I won't have one of those things in the house. It gives a young girl a false notion of beauty, not to mention anatomy. If a real woman was built like that she'd fall on her face. She said, If we don't let her have one like all the other girls she'll feel singled out. It'll become an issue. She'll long for one and she'll long to turn into one. Repression breeds sublimation. You know that. He said, It's not just the pointy plastic tits, it's the wardrobes. The wardrobes and that stupid male doll, what's his name, the one with the underwear glued on. She said, Better to get it over with when she's young. He said, All right but don't let me see it. She came whizzing down the stairs, thrown like a dart. She was stark naked. Her hair had been chopped off, her head was turned back to front, she was missing some toes and she'd been tattooed all over her body with purple ink, in a scrollwork design. She hit the potted azalea, trembled there for a moment like a botched angel, and fell. He said, I guess we're safe.”

HumorWomenBeautyGirlsFeminineRole ModelsFemininityGender RolesBarbieGender Stereotypes
Book:The Female Body
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“I can't help it, it's what I feel. And I can't change it, nor can I explain it. I was just naïve enough to believe that the people closest to me would get it. I don't understand how a biological condition can end up defining how we are supposed to live - what kind of work we should do, how we should dress, how we should feel, whom to love? How to walk! It seems like the only way I can exist is if the world can decode me according to a gender. Anything else makes people uncomfortable and my existence becomes a freak show.”

SelfIdentityIndividualityGender RolesFitting InGender StereotypesNon Binary
Book:Rain Must Fall
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“Nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, teacher's prophecy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it, too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it's how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I've met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.”

MenWomenDestinyGreatnessFameGloryGenderGender Roles
Book:Writers & Lovers
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“the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”

LoveTruthRelationshipsGender RolesGender Stereotypes
Book:All About Love: New Visions
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“Finding The Man. Keeping The Man. Not scaring The Man, building up The Man, following The Man, soothing The Man, flattering The Man, deferring to The Man, changing your judgement for The Man, changing your decisions for The Man, polishing floors for The Man, being perpetually conscious of your appearance for The Man, being romantic for The Man, hinting to The Man, losing yourself in The Man. 'I never had a thought that wasn't yours.' Sob, sob. Whenever I act like a human being, they say, 'What are you getting upset about?' They say: of course you'll get married. They say: of course you're brilliant. They say: of course you'll get a PhD and then sacrifice it to have babies. They say: if you don't, you're the one who'll have two jobs and you can make a go of it if you're exceptional, which very few women are, and if you find a very understanding man. As long as you don't make more money than he does. How do they expect me to live all this junk?”

WomenSexismGender Roles
Book:The Female Man
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“Women have been programmed to view our bodies only in terms of how they look and feel to others, rather than how they feel to ourselves, and how we wish to use them. We are surrounded by media images portraying women as essentially decorative machines of consumer function, constantly doing battle with rampant decay. (Take your vitamins every day and he might keep you, if you don’t forget to whiten your teeth, cover up your smells, color your grey hair and iron out your wrinkles....) As women, we fight this depersonalization every day, this pressure toward the conversion of one’s own self-image into a media expectation of what might satisfy male demand.”

WomenExpectationsGenderGender RolesBodiesObjectificationDepersonalizationWomen S Bodies
Book:The Cancer Journals
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“We met at all hours, whenever a new emergency demanded attention. It was not unusual to find some of us talking things over in one of our homes at two-thirty in the morning. While our wives plied us with coffee, and joined the informal discussion, we laid plans and arrived at agreements on policy.”

WomenGenderPlanningAdministrationGender RolesGender StereotypesMontgomery Bus Boycott
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
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“जहां रौब दिखाना हो, वहां बाराती बनकर आदमी पहुंच जाते हैं लेकिन जहां शरीर को तकलीफ देनी हो, जहां परीक्षा की सूली पर चढ़ना हो, वहां महिलाओ को आगे कर दिया जाता है। हमारी मासूम कौम पीढ़ी दर पीढ़ी इस राह पर आगे बढ़ती चली जा रही है।”

MenWomenPatriarchyGender RolesCommentary On Society
Book:आई डोन्ट लाइक यू
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“ऐसा क्यों है कि अंधेरे में सुबह चार बजे मम्मी के साथ मैं, कुएं के ठंडे पानी से नहाने जाती हूँ। कार्तिक का महीना बहुत ठंड लिए रहता है। ऐसे में सारी तपस्या सिर्फ महिलाएं क्यों कर रही हैं? पापा और पापा की तरह सब पुरूष रजाई में क्यों सो रहे हैं? क्या उन्होंने कोई पाप नहीं किए? जवाब में परंपराओं का हवाला दे दिया जाता था। मुझे फक्र होता है उस शीक्षा पर, सवाल पूछने के अधिकार के उपयोग पर जो हमें सहज उपलब्ध था।”

MenLifeWomenPatriarchyQuestionsGender Roles
Book:आई डोन्ट लाइक यू
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“Could Stephen have met men on equal terms, she would always have chosen them as her companions; she preferred them because of their blunt, open outlook, and with men she had much in common—sport for instance. But men found her too clever if she ventured to expand, and too dull if she suddenly subsided into shyness. In addition to this there was something about her that antagonized slightly, an unconscious presumption. Shy though she might be, they sensed this presumption; it annoyed them, it made them feel on the defensive. She was handsome but much too large and unyielding both in body and mind, and they liked clinging women. They were oak-trees, preferring the feminine ivy. It might cling rather close, it might finally strangle, it frequently did, and yet they preferred it, and this being so, they resented Stephen, suspecting something of the acorn about her.”

MenWomenGenderMasculinityFemininityShynessClevernessGender RolesPresumption
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“Captain Ramsay was kind-hearted, he would try very hard to be complimentary; his grey eyes would try to express admiration, polite admiration as they rested on Stephen. His voice would sound softer and more confidential, the voice that nice men reserve for good women, protective, respectful, yet a little sex-conscious, a little expectant of a tentative response. But Stephen would feel herself growing more rigid with every kind word and gallant allusion. Openly hostile she would be feeling, as poor Captain Ramsay or some other victim was manfully trying to do his duty.”

MenWomenGenderMasculinityFemininityGender RolesGender Relationships
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“Later on, however, I actually did read an unabridged Bible and researched more verses using online topical Bible resources, only to find out that Stanton might have been right. The Bible definitely left room for the relegation of women’s status in all respects. Women appeared to have been held accountable for every sinful act that’s committed because of a single woman who lived in the Garden of Eden, hence appearing to make them required to be silent in church. Women were supposed to be mothers and wives, which are noble pursuits, but it appeared as if men had a wider range of opportunities: they could be fathers and husbands… along with apostles, pastors, political leaders, polyglots, AND leaders of municipal congregations! The pursuits other than being a father and husband were considered to be noble pursuits for men, but if a woman pursued any of that, even if she had the capabilities and the good intentions, it would be considered blasphemous, at least from what I understood”

FeminismBibleEqualityGender Roles
Book:Feminism and Biblical Hermeneutics
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“Guys, you don't have to act "manly" to be considered a man; you are a man, so just be yourself. Don't let society make you believe you have to prove your masculinity to anyone because you don't. You are you and you are worthy, full stop.”

MenBoysSocietyFeminismFeministGenderWorthySelf WorthManFeminineMasculinityMasculineManlyGender RolesWorthinessMaleGender StereotypesSocial ExpectationsMan EnoughGender PolicingGender Expectations
Book:Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women
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“The most important difference between men and women is that men get benefit from risk, and women don't. Men wage war, hunt, go on trading expeditions; while women are weighed down firstly by child-bearing and are also just phisically weaker. In game theory terms this creates very different incentives for men is the formation of systems in which men can excel through doing stuff to make themselves more attractive as mates. To women is to mitigate risk as much as humanly possible.”

SocietyHuman NatureMen And WomenGender Roles
Author:Whatifalthist
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“Yet sacrifice of the self is everywhere viewed as the highest calling, and the more so for a woman, who must give every element of her life to others. Kindness is at all times counseled to women, who are called unnatural if not kind. Yet how can a kindness that blights the life of even one--though it benefit others--be called good? Is it in face kindness to sever oneself from one's own desires? Mustn't the imperative to protect all life encompass--even for a woman--her own? Then we must abandon our accustomed notion of a woman's kindness, and forge a new own.”

NatureKindnessSocietyWomanRulesSelf SacrificeGender RolesSocial Rules
Book:The Weight of Ink
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“I remembered the hotel drinks with the married man, when he'd eagerly asked me if I wanted children. And now here was this man, neurotically lying about his age. I'd spent a lot of my life being cautioned to avoid being a certain kind of woman: needy, desperate, hungry for commitment and babies, terrified of my age. Only now was it starting to occur to me that these female clichés had all been created by men, and perhaps, like many writers, they'd simply been describing themselves and projecting their worst characteristics.”

DatingGender RolesGender StereotypesTransferenceFeminsismLying About Your Age
Book:No One Tells You This
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“Even more than I hate commodifying myself, I hate men judging me as a commodity. For thousands of years, women have been throughout their lives reduced to their worth as sexual objects (slash domestic workers). We learn very early on to go to great lengths to increase our sexual value in the eyes of men, without even realizing that's why we're (for example) agonizing over whether our one snack for the day should be a pear or a seventy-calorie sugar-free yogurt. For years- much of my childhood and early twenties- I spent the largest portion of my conscious thought on food and how much I hated and was terrified of my body. It has taken a lot of work to divorce my view of my body and my feelings of romantic worthiness from outside sources. I'm afraid apps would undermine that effort.”

DatingBody ImageGender Roles
Book:How to Date Men When You Hate Men
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“Men, perhaps, might nourish both heart and mind, but for a woman there could be no such luxury... How readily the rules of female behavior--gentleness, acquiescence, ever-mindfulness--turn to shackles. So, she thought, there must be declared a new kind of virtue: one that made the throwing off of such rules, and even such deceit as this required, praiseworthy.”

MindHeartVirtueSocietyBehaviorExpectationsRulesGender Roles
Book:The Weight of Ink
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“I was the victim of both social orders: of Apollo’s waxing patriarchy, & of Clytemnestra’s last spasms of outraged matriarchy. My father Priam probably would have said: that I had asked for it. That no society could be expected to tolerate an individual who insisted on telling the truth.”

TruthFeminismIdentityMythologyProphecyGender RolesCassandra
Book:The Autobiography of Cassandra, Princess & Prophetess of Troy
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