Best 791 quotes in «gender quotes» category

So far as I am concerned the difference between men and women is that men are interested in cutting grass and women are not. I actually prefer a daisy-sprinkled lawn; Jack, of course, wanted meticulous stripes.

Society' consists mostly of women. Women carry on most of its processes, therefore women are its makers and masters, they are responsible for it, that is the general belief. We might as well hold women responsible for harems--or prisoners for jails. To be helplessly confined to a given place or condition does not prove that one has chosen it; much less made it. No; in an androcentric culture "society," like every other social relation, is dominated by the male and arranged for his convenience.

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

Some critics of trans people have told us that we shouldn’t feel this pain of being denied the legitimacy of our own selves; gender is, of course, just a social construct. I wonder if these people also tell widows not to bother grieving their husbands, because marriage is also just another social construct.

Some feminists are really very interesting people. Science cannot unambiguously clarify which one — nature or nurture— fundamentally determines personality traits and human behavior, but some feminist movements already distinguish sex (biological factors) from gender (social factors), insisting that social cultivation can significantly modify social roles and behavior patterns and radically change the perception of traditional masculinity and femininity in the social system. In fact, without reliable scientific verification of the relationship between nature and nurture in the predestination of future human life, they offer a firm ready-made belief in changing this life with education and upbringing. And this is one of the essential differences between science and political ideology, which also includes feminism among others.

Some men are so indoctrinated that they sincerely believe that other than cooking and cleaning the only thing that a woman can do better than them is being a woman.

Some of these stories, it is understood, are not to be passed on to my father, because they would upset him. It is well known that women can deal with this sort of thing better than men can. Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic. Men, for some mysterious reason, find life more difficult than women do. (My mother believes this, despite the female bodies, trapped, diseased, disappearing, or abandoned, that litter her stories.) Men must be allowed to play in the sandbox of their choice, as happily as they can, without disturbance; otherwise they get cranky and won't eat their dinners. There are all kinds of things that men are simply not equipped to understand, so why expect it of them? Not everyone shares this believe about men; neverthetheless, it has its uses.

Some people will say, “Oh, but women have the real power, bottom power.” And for non-Nigerians, “bottom power” is an expression in which I suppose means something like a woman who uses her sexuality to get favors from men. But “bottom power” is not power at all. Bottom power means that a woman simply has a good root to tap into, from time to time, somebody else’s power. And then of course we have to wonder when that somebody else is in a bad mood, or sick, or impotent.

Some women think being arrogant, selfish, bitter and looking down on others are qualities of being an Independent, strong, powerful and successful business women. No matter how high you are in life. Never look down on others and never forget humanity.

Some women have become far too proscriptive of other women's pleasures and private arrangements, and the definition of feminism has become ideologically overloaded.

So much time lost, so much of my childhood gone, because nobody every asked the right questions.

So, no, this conversation is about gender. Some people will say, "Oh, but women have the real power: bottom power." (This is a Nigerian expression for a woman who uses her sexuality to get things from men.) But bottom power is not power at all, because the woman with bottom power is actually not powerful; she just has a good route to tap another person's power. And then what happens if the man is in a bad mood or sick or temporarily impotent?

So think how this might alter the memory of The Matrix: In some protracted reality, film historians will reinvestigate an extremely commercial action movie made by people who (unbeknownst to the audience) would eventually transition from male to female. Suddenly, the symbolic meaning of a universe with two worlds—one false and constructed, the other genuine and hidden—takes on an entirely new meaning.

So, we may wreck people simply to validate ourselves. We may wreck them because we’re jealous. We may wreck them because we fear the sight of public suffering, or because, well, everyone else hates them, so they must have done something to deserve it. Maybe. But then, there’s my favorite theory: Maybe we wreck people because they’re women.

Straight women love a feminine sensibility in a man, but that love only goes up to, and unfortunately does not quite pass, the fact of his being an actual woman.

So you’re positive the killer is a man.” “Yes, I think my gender can take responsibility for this one. Women don’t cut out other women’s hearts.” “We can.

So when we say to ourselves, or to others, 'You should obey God,' what we mean is 'We want what God deserves (your obedience) and we want what is best for you (your obedience).

Stanford University's psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues have discovered that what you believe about intellectual ability—whether you think it's a fixed gift, or an earned ability that can be developed—makes a difference to your behavior, persistence, and performance. Students who see ability as fixed—as a gift—are more vulnerable to setbacks and difficulties. And stereotypes, as Dweck rightly points out, "are stories about gifts—who has them and who doesn't." Dweck and her colleagues are shown that when students are encouraged to see math ability as something that grows with effort—pointing out, for example, that the brain forges new connections and develops better ability every time they practice a task—grades improve and gender gaps diminish (relative to groups given control interventions).

Sylvia was an early literary manifestation of a young woman who takes endless selfies and posts them with vicious captions calling herself fat and ugly. She is at once her own documentarian and the reflexive voice that says she is unworthy of documentation. She sends her image into the world to be seen, discussed, and devoured, proclaiming that the ordinariness or ugliness of her existence does not remove her right to have it.

[Suggesting an additional definition for 'politics':] The art of organizing and handling men in large numbers, manipulating votes, and, in especial, appropriating public wealth.

Teaching and learning _religious plurality often ends up privileging religious _texts_ over _practice_ and largely ignoring the social and historical contexts and the lived experience of people who shape, situate, and structure these religious texts. Furthermore, adopting the politics of recognition as a pedagogical principle in teaching can lead to an _uncritical silence_ about the various forms of oppression and domination of certain religious groups. Here people often use _religious difference_ as a _religious alibi_ for the oppression or violation of human rights of certain groups of people, such as women or LGBT people.

That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.

Tears don’t make you a girl, but they sure make you human.

Testosterone has far less to do with aggression than most assume. Within the normal range, individual differences in testosterone levels don’t predict who will be aggressive. Moreover, the more an organism has been aggressive, the less testosterone is needed for further aggression. When testosterone does play a role, it’s facilitatory—testosterone does not 'invent' aggression. It makes us more sensitive to triggers of aggression. Also, rising testosterone levels foster aggression only during challenges to status. Finally, crucially, the rise in testosterone during a status challenge does not necessarily increase aggression; it increases whatever is needed to maintain status. In a world in which status is awarded for the best of our behaviors, testosterone would be the most prosocial hormone in existence.

That I was a boy, but it was not as simple as me wanting to be called he. That I liked being called he and him. But that I would've liked being called she and her sometimes, too, if it didn't let everyone settle into the assumption that I was a girl. I had never been a girl, would never be a girl...

That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.

That’s the vicious truth doctor. For me and persons like me, we are experiencing a divorce from our own individual self by sensing our sensations, emotions, behaviors as not belonging to the same person or identity. That’s how you psychiatrists could explain it. That’s how society would like to codify its population. Such a ludicrous model we’ve been creating calling it civilization

That's what a man is supposed to do for his wife. Listen, if a nigger didn't get lynched every now and then, well, there's just no telling what they'd do to us." "Who?" Lily asked. "Why, honey, the niggers and our husbands both. I don't care what color they are; men build up steam. And they gotta let it out somewhere. Colored men. White men. They both crazy. Honey, the point is you gotta look at it this way: A whole lotta women can't, "I got a man who'll kill for me."

That which is desirable in young girls means, naturally, that which is desirable to men. Of all cultivated accomplishments the first is 'innocence.' Beauty may or may not be forthcoming; but 'innocence' is 'the chief charm of girlhood.

The anticipation of an authoritative disclosure of meaning is the means by which that authority is attributed and installed: the anticipation conjures its object.

The analysis provides a clear difference between the age and gender of Japanese students in Australia. The difficult management question is “what do these numbers mean”?

The appeal to the 'natural' is one of the most powerful aspects of common-sense thinking but it is a way of understanding social relations which denies history and the possibility of change for the future.

The battles over women's bodies can be won only by a revolution of the mind

The arbitrary character of patriarchal ascriptions of temperament and role has little effect upon their power over us. Nor do the mutually exclusive, contradictory, and polar qualities of the categories “masculine” and “feminine” imposed upon human personality give rise to sufficiently serious question among us. Under their aegis each personality becomes little more, and often less than half, of its human potential. Politically, the fact that each group exhibits a circumscribed but complementary personality and range of activity is of secondary importance to the fact that each represents a status or power division. In the matter of conformity patriarchy is a governing ideology without peer; it is probably that no other system has ever exercised such a complete control over its subjects.

The effect of legalised prostitution on women outside prostitution is to lower the status of all women. Women are recognised by the state in this system as the appropriate objects of male penetration with no consideration for their personhood or pleasure. This teaches that the penetration and use of an unwilling woman is ‘sex’, an idea that lies at the root of sexual violence against women in general. There is no chance of developing a sexuality of equality in which women’s pleasure, right to say no, and bodily integrity are respected whilst the violence of prostitution is allowed to continue with state support for men’s behaviour.

The connection between our archaic system of punishment and our androcentric culture is two-fold. The impulse of resistance, while, as we have seen, of the deepest natural origin, is expressed more strongly in the male than in the female. The tendency to hit back and hit harder has been fostered in him by sex-combat till it has become of great intensity. The habit of authority too, as old as our history; and the cumulative weight of all the religions and systems of law and government, have furthermore built up and intensified the spirit of retaliation and vengeance. They have even deified this concept, in ancient religions, crediting to God the evil passions of men. As the small boy recited; 'Vengeance. A mean desire to get even with your enemies: 'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord'--'I will repay.

[...] the day when male writers can speak for women is speeding by. Fast.

The dirty secrets of high altitude astronomy are unnaturally high solar radiation levels, Faraday cage sickness, man-made electromagnetic exposures, breathing industrial gas, oxygen starvation, organ damage, gastrointestinal problems, malnutrition, altered hormones, Gender Dysphoria (GD), shift work disorder, mental illness and occupational diseases.

The entire human lexicon would mean absolutely nothing, if women didn't exist in the world.

The fact that most perpetrators of organised abuse are men, and that their most intensive and sadistic abuses are visited upon girls and women, has gone largely unnoticed, as have the patterns of gendered inequity that characterise the families and institutional settings in which organised abuse takes place. Organised abuse survivors share a number of challenges in common with other survivors of abuse and trauma, including health and justice systems that have been slow to recognise and respond to violence against children and women. However, this connection is rarely made in the literature on organised abuse, with some authors hinting darkly at the nefarious influence of abusive groups. Fraser (1997: xiv) provides a note of caution here, explaining that whilst it is relatively easy to ‘comment on the naïveté of those grappling with this issue ... it is very difficult to actually face a new and urgent phenomenon and deal with it, but not fully understand it, while managing distressed and confused patients and their families’.

The breakdown of mummies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle...For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which we loathed in straight society. It was the rejection of these roles that had drawn us to 'the life' in the first place. Instinctively, without particular theory or political position or dialectic, we recognized oppression as oppression, no matter where it came from. But those lesbians who had carved some niche in the pretend world of dominance/subordination rejected what they called our 'confused' lifestyle, and they were in the majority.

The empress preferred to keep men like them around. They were both pleasing to the eye and handy if a jar needed opening.

The explanation of language depends upon its fulfilling criteria demanded by reason. Reason, though, itself requires language. The character of any natural language has a great deal to do with the history of the interactions with the world of the people whose language it is. Even if we can no longer accept a theological story of creation, the immediacy of human contact with things and the development of language do go hand in hand, as the primacy of practical vocabulary before abstractions in the history of languages suggests. Any attempt to generalize about language without taking this historical basis into account will lead to a conception of language in which an abstract conception of reason is prior. Hamann's polemic against such positions is often couched in sexual terms: revelation is most powerful when it occurs through the body's libidinal link to other parts of the universe. The very fact that languages sometimes divide the world up in terms of genders is therefore one key to understanding how language is attached to the world.

The first thing you're going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?

The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

[T]he full and complete development of a country, the welfare of the world and the cause of peace require the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields." [Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)]

The fundamental condition of man is his verticality.

The god of art neither has religion nor gender or color or any shape. All he does is sit inside me and smile every time I look inside myself and ask him a question. A smile that resembles a silver lining on the darkest cloud. A smile that cuts me off from my reality and throws me into infinity and beyond. At that moment, all I can feel is floating in a place that doesn't have gravity and looking at the memories of the people who have asked him the same questions before.

The gender thing is a giveaway, though. Only a Radchaai would misgender people the way you do." I'd guessed wrong. "I can't see under your clothes. And even if I could, that's not always a reliable indicator.

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