901 Quotes About Gender

Misogynists have often reproached intellectual women for 'letting themselves go'; but they also preach to them: if you want to be our equals, stop wearing makeup and polishing your nails. This advice is absurd. Precisely because the idea of femininity is artificially defined by customs and fashion, it is imposed on every woman from the outside[...]. The individual is not free to shape the idea of femininity at will.

The future shouldn't be female or male---but one of women and men working together. That's the real definition of equality.

Misogyny was born of fear of women.

So many men in my life have tried to “fix me”; they viewed me as a “fiery” being who is in need of taming

It's an arbitrary thing if you're born with an XX or XY chromosome, but it can determine your experience of the world. It's about whether you are physically intimidating vs. being physically intimidated. It determines whether you are the one to take an active role in sex and society.

Maybe men who still have the cave-man expectations of women should be sent back into caves. A lot of women will readily volunteer to build such caves free of charge.

I personally believe that gender equality underlines every other equality, and certainly the issue of sexuality. For instance, if we didn’t distinguish between gender, in terms of giving different genders disparate values and attributes, what problem would we have with two men loving each other?

At first, feminists were assumed to be only discontented suburban housewives; then a small bunch of women's "libbers", bra burners, and radicals; then women on welfare; then briefcase carrying imitations of male executives; then unfulfilled women who forgot to have children; then women voters...that really could decide elections. That last was too dangerous, so suddenly we were told we were in a "postfeminist" age...

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.