Warren Farrell Quotes

Feminists have confused opportunity with outcome.

I define power as 'control over one's life.' A balanced life is far superior to the male definition of power: earning money someone else spends while he dies sooner.

When women criticized men, I called it 'insight' ... When men criticized women, I called it 'sexism' and 'backlash.'

Every day, almost as many men are killed at work as were killed during the average day in Vietnam. For men, there are, in essence, three male-only drafts: the draft of men to all the wars; the draft of Everyman to unpaid bodyguard; the draft of men to all the hazardous jobs or 'death professions.

So long as you create laws that define women as victims, as creatures that demand protection, that need bodyguards, you are going to perpetuate the very worst of our sexist past.

Financial analysts make a lot more than accountants.

Hazing is both testing and training to subordinate self to the team.

When women and men have approximately equal life expectancies, it seems to be because women die not only in childbirth (fewer than thought) but about equal from ... diseases; poor sanitation and water; inadequate healthcare; and diseases of malnutrition. In industrialized societies, early deaths are caused more by diseases triggered by stress, which breaks down the immune system. It is since stress has become the key factor that men have died so much sooner than women.

Because of the feminist perspective, we have gotten a view of the world that is distorted.

Blacks are six times more likely than whites to be victims of homicides.

We can decrease abuse and murder when we get that for both sexes, abuse does not derive from power, but powerlessness.

Since no one is always right, always being right is really a role model for his children feeling inadequate.

Boys with a 'failure to launch' are invisible to most girls. With poor social skills, the boys feel anger at their fear of being rejected and self-loathing at their inability to compete.

He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy - sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy - commitment.

Sexual harassment legislation feels unfair to men because if they sued over an ethnic joke, or over a woman discussing pornography or asking them out, they'd be laughed out of the company.

There are 25 differences in the way women and men behave in the workplace. These 25 differences lead to men receiving higher pay and women having better lives or at least more balanced lives.

Both parents' rights must be in balance so children can grow up with a balance between both parents.

The deeper purpose of a more positive attitude toward men is a better life for the children who are parented by the men who are their dads and stepdads; less shame for our sons who will become men; and, for our daughters, a deeper understanding of men's desire to please that leaves them feeling their willingness to please is not unrequited but returned
allowing our daughters to feel less lonely and more loved. If we earn more and love less, we pay for a home in which we do not live.

Framework, ( ... ) addiction to female beauty and sex; deprivation of the beautiful woman and sex with her until the man guarantees economic security in return; ( ...

It is in the interests of both sexes to hear the other sex's experience of powerlessness.

Women's genetic celebrity power magnifies men's protector instinct. It inspires the government-as-substitute-husband. Men's addiction to the genetic celebrity is either invisible or in the denial stage thus we either don't see it, or when confronted, deny it.

I am a men's liberationist (or "masculist") when men's liberation is defined as equal opportunity and equal responsibility for both sexes. I am a feminist when feminism favors equal opportunities and responsibilities for both sexes. I oppose both movements when either says our sex is THE oppressed sex, therefore, "we deserve rights." That's not gender liberation but gender entitlement. Ultimately, I am in favor of neither a women's movement nor a men's movement but a gender transition movement.

When a man is forced into early retirement, he is often being 'given up for a younger man.' Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being 'given up for a younger woman' is for a woman ... Why do many men get more upset by retirement than women do from the empty nest when their children leave home? When females retire from children, they can try a career; when a man retires from a career, his children are gone.

Many black men leave because they are financially responsible
not because they are emotionally irresponsible.

When a dad admits he is wrong or asks for help, he allows the child to see him- or herself as adequate even when she or he is also wrong. It encourages children to make suggestions and, therefore, to discover their creativity because they have a chance of making a contribution.

I started to get very well recognized in the early seventies as the only man in the United States who had been elected three times to the board of NOW in New York City.

Once boys' and men's challenges are clear, the question 'why now' quickly becomes 'why didn't we see this sooner?' The answer? Virtually every society that survived did so by socializing its sons to be disposable.

I would suggest that just as women who make it in the world of business need male business mentors, perhaps men who make it in the world of emotions will need female emotional mentors.

Sex role training becomes divorce training.

Men have not stacked the decks against women.

In fact, the socialization gives us the tools to fill our evolutionary roles. They are our building blocks.

For me, the massiveness of what I don't know is one way I experience God. It creates in me a feeling of humility and a sense of gratitude.

Alan Alda is loved not because he's sensitive, but because he's successful and sensitive.

Perhaps the best reason to consider the hard sciences is that, well, one study suggests science, engineering, medicine, and dentistry graduates live longer than arts graduates (or law grads). So whatever money you make you can keep a bit longer.

Crime, especially crime involving money, reflects the gap between the expectation to provide and the ability to provide ... If we really want men to commit crime as infrequently as women, we can start by not expecting men to provide for women more than we expect women to provide for men.

Men will not change as long as women 'marry up.' Men won't change until we have a perspective on how powerless power makes us. A woman cannot help a man change until she has a perspective on how powerless power makes men.

In these ways, your son's economic health can dictate his ability to be loved, which makes his economic health inseparable from his mental health, and therefore his physical health. And few things affect his economic health more than his education.

Letting men die is a money-saving device. Safety costs money as one safety official put it, 'When everything is hurry, hurry, hurry, when you start pressuring people and taking shortcuts, things can go wrong. And then people die.' No. And then men die.

A person working 45 hours per week averages 44% more income than someone working 40 hours per week. That's 44% more income for 13% more time.

Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace: The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads.

But when feminists suggest that God might be a She without suggesting that the Devil might also be female, they must be opposed.

There are 80 jobs in which women earn more than men - positions like financial analyst, speech-language pathologist, radiation therapist, library worker, biological technician, motion picture projectionist.

If you are a woman, you might feel torn between logical agreement and emotional resistance. Why? It seems like a simpler solution to blame men for the pay gap than to engineer your own bridge to higher pay.

With men, we blame the victim. We blame men because we have camouflaged men's victimization by teaching men to also be the victimizer. Men's victimizer status camouflages men's victim status.

A man cannot tell whether a woman is in love with him or his security blanket until she is financially and psychologically independent enough to leave. Until a woman has learned how to leave, even she cannot be sure she has learned to love.

By the 1970s, the American woman was being called 'liberated' or 'superwoman' while the American man was being called 'baby killer' if he fought in Vietnam, 'traitor' if he protested, or 'apathetic' if he did neither. Even men who came home paraplegics were literally spit on.

As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don't put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a "no" into a "maybe" into a "yes." If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the "yes" turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson.

Women's liberation and the male midlife crisis were the same search
for personal fulfillment, common values, mutual respect, love. But while women's liberation was thought of as promoting identity, the male midlife crisis was thought of as an identity crisis.

I don't think there's anything that is a greater area of discrimination against women today than the fact that nowhere in the world is there a female role model in team sports that more than half of a general audience would recognize.

Throughout my life I have always been amazed that people couldn't listen to other people, that they couldn't hear their best intent, that there seemed to be an enormous need to demonize.

During the years I was on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women [chapter] in New York City, the most resistant audiences I ever faced in the process of doing corporate workshops on equality in the workplace were not male executives they were the wives of male executives. As long as her income came from her husband, she was not feeling generous when affirmative action let another woman have a head start vying for her husband's (her) income.

Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being "given up for a younger woman" is for a woman.

Now, since I'm a husband and father, discrimination against women isn't just political, it's personal.

To me, God is the accumulated wisdom I've gathered throughout my life. When I pay attention, my body gives me a printout of this wisdom.

If an employer had to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman could do for 59 cents, why would anyone hire a man?

We have restricted humans from giving 'free' food to bears and dolphins because we know that such feeding would make them dependent and lead to their extinction. But when it comes to our own species, we have difficulty seeing the connection between short-term kindness and long-term cruelty; we give women money to have more children, making them more dependent with each child and discouraging them from developing the tools to fend for themselves. The real discrimination against women, then, is 'free feeding'.

For blacks in our society, victimization may be a true issue. But it isn't a true issue for women. Neither men nor women are victimized. The true issue, that I try to point out, is that both sexes suffer restricted roles.

Just as women needed the help of the law to enter the workplace in the 20th century, men will need the help of the law to love their children in the 21st century.

One danger of a man succeeding is that it teaches his wife and daughter not to worry about success.

The weakness of men is the facade of strength; the strength of women is the facade of weakness.

Divorces led to bodies of men (called legislatures) protecting women collectively as other men (called husbands) failed to protect women individually.

I'm not saying that men make better fathers than women do mothers.

A lot of young men are frustrated and looking for someone to blame.

Our main reasons for fearing males having sex with males is that you really had to construct a more powerful social role to keep men in their place than you did to keep women in their place.

Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II [post survival-focused] society, we have neglected to teach this generation relationship language and conflict resolution skills to address the social and psychological needs of a Stage II society. And when it is taught, in countries like Germany, although called social competence it focuses on workplace teamwork
still on survival, breadwinner oriented work goals.

If my parents had made love a tenth of a second earlier or later, I wouldn't exist. What an enormous miracle, just being given life.

Children living with their dad felt positively about their mom; children living with their mom were more likely to think negatively of their dad.

Without children, men have more liberty to earn less - that is, they are free to pursue more fulfilling and less lucrative careers, like writing or art or teaching social studies.

Somehow, women's romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said "No". They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this "marry the rapist" theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of women's most enduring romance novels.

The male corporate model is built on a man's greater willingness to be a slave of sorts - especially once he has to provide for children.

In brief, we spend billions to get from dads the money few of them have, and virtually nothing to allow dads to give the time they do have-the time their children need.

At this moment in history, millions of 'working dads' are desiring to do what they do not feel they have the right to do: be more devoted as a dad, less devoted as a worker. This feeling is far more ubiquitous among men executives than women executives in many areas of the world because, for instance, Asia-Pacific women executives today are more than six times as likely to not have children than men executives are. The Asia-Pacific executive man is about six times as likely to be a working dad as an executive woman is to be a working mom.

The Myth of Male Power dealt much more with the political issues, the legal issues, sexual harassment, date rape, women who kill, and those issues were very much more interfaced with the agendas of feminism.

Circumcision in the United States is routinely performed without anesthesia, though anesthesia reduces the infant's stress and prevents infection and blood clots.

It evolved from my experience in the fifties, growing up during the McCarthy era, and hearing a lot of assumptions that America was wonderful and Communism was terrible.

In the case of a man and a woman [accused of commiting a crime together], both will often agree to the man taking the rap despite the man being more likely to receive a longer sentence and more likely to be raped in prison. If blacks were agreeing to do that for whites, the black community would be smart enough to call that 'learned subservience.

The five different areas in which boys are in crisis - education; jobs; emotional health; physical health; and fatherlessness - are handled by different portions of the government.

You could make a case that women addicted men to their sexuality and then withdrew their sexuality until we provided them with a source of income.

A family that knows how to play together has the tools to stay together.

After a divorce, men's biggest fear is, typically, losing their children (women's is poverty).

Our love for children is so immediate in part because we feel their powerlessness immediately; conversely, part of the way we deny our love for men is by denying men's powerlessness. Too often we have confused love for men with respect for them, especially for their power to take care of us
which is really just love for ourselves.

Our children are better served by speaking not of visitation versus custody, but of parent time.

Women do not enter a profession in significant numbers until it is physically safe. So until we care enough about men's safety to turn the death professions into safe professions, we in effect discriminate against women. But when we overprotect women and only women it also leads to discrimination against women ... If [an employer works] for a large company for which quotas prevent discrimination, they find themselves increasingly hiring free-lancers rather than taking on a woman and therefore a possible sexual harassment lawsuit ...

Perhaps the most prevailing expectation of men is our Superman expectation: the fear we are merely Clark Kents who won't be accepted unless we are a Superman.

People who get higher pay are more willing to relocate
especially to undesirable locations at the company's behest ... A corporate secretary may change companies in the same town; a corporate executive is more likely to change towns with the same company. A talented corporate secretary sees an invitation to relocate as an invitation; a future corporate executive sees an invitation to relocate as an opportunity
and an obligation.

When a government requires a man to support a child he was tricked into creating, that government subsidizes fraud. No. It is worse than that: It subsidizes the woman using a man's body for 18-21 years without his consent.

And if your son is unemployed? Three out of four women say they would not date an unemployed man. In contrast, for two-thirds of men, dating an unemployed woman is a nonissue.

In 1969, nationwide, female professors who had never been married and never published earned 145% of their counterpart male colleagues.

The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labor unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labor unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon become taxpayer-supported women's unions.

When a man is able to connect with his feelings, he is able to care more.

When women are at the height of their beauty power and exercise it, we call it marriage. When men are at the height of their success power and exercise it, we call it a mid-life crisis.

In Stage I, divorces were not allowed, so men's [sexual] affairs did not put women's economic security in jeopardy; in Stage II, affairs could lead to divorce, so men's affairs did place women's economic security in jeopardy. We did not want political leaders who would be role models for behavior that would put women's economic security in jeopardy.

When we hear men are the greater victims of crime, we tend to say, 'Well, it's men hurting other men.' When we hear that blacks are the greater victims, we consider it racist to say, 'Well, it's blacks hurting blacks.' The victim is a victim no matter who the perpetrator was.

Were we to still be circumcising the hood of the female clitoris, we would not have difficulty considering this a continuation of our tradition to keep girls sexually repressed. America's reflexive continuation of [male] circumcision-without-research reflects the continuation of our tradition to desensitize boys to feelings of pain, to prepare them to question the disposability of their bodies no more than they would question the disposability of their foreskins.

If a man belittles a woman, it could become a lawsuit. If women belittle men, it's a Hallmark card.

Men give the same lines to different women for the same reason women wear the same perfume for different men; we all try the things that work.

Every day in about half the advertisements, a man sees the constant reminder of the woman he was not worthy of.

Ideally there should not be a men's movement but a gender transition movement; only the power of the women's movement necessitates the temporary corrective of a men's movement. And this creates a special challenge for men: There are few political movements filled with healthy people, yet few healthy changes have occurred without political movements.

Men are not only women's unpaid bodyguards, they actually pay to be a woman's bodyguard.

Women's scars and rituals involved beauty (piercing ears and noses, binding feet, and wearing corsets); men's involved protecting women. In cultures in which physical strength is still the best way to protect women, as among the Dodos in Uganda, each time a man kills a man, he is awarded a ritual scar; the more scars, the more he is considered eligible.