Gender Norms Quotes

When a woman shows anger in institutional, political, and professional settings, she automatically violates gender norms. ~ Soraya Chemaly

Some gender norms are healthy, some are unhealthy - you must wake up from the patriarchal sleep to recognize which is which. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If well-behaved women seldom make history, it is not only because gender norms have constrained the range of female activity but because history hasn't been very good at capturing the lives of those whose contributions have been local and domestic. For centuries, women have sustained local communities, raising food, caring for the sick, and picking up the pieces after wars. ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

In a study of children's toy and television preferences, researchers Isabelle Cherney and Kamala London found that, when left alone, half of boys ages five through thirteen picked "girl" and "boy" toys equally - until they thought they were being watched. They were especially concerned about what their fathers would think if they saw them. Over time, boys' interests in toys and media become more rigidly masculinized and codified, whereas girls' stay relatively open ended and flexible. ~ Soraya Chemaly

If you don't challenge things, all you have done is passed it on to the next woman to deal with. ~ Julia Hardy

The core issue is that, no matter where you may live in the world, dominant norms of masculinity are actively constructed out of women's vulnerabilities. ~ Soraya Chemaly

Guys, you don't have to act "manly" to be considered a man; you are a man, so just be yourself. You don't have to prove your masculinity to anyone. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

Am I being unfair? Is it only my self-hatred playing me a trick? Self-hatred is a gendered feeling: in a man it makes him a wimp; in a woman it's the natural order to feel defective. ~ Jens Christian Grøndahl

The real story of Nader, Shahed, and other women who live as men in Afghanistan is not so much about how they break gender norms or what they have become by doing that. Rather, it is about this: Between gender and freedom, freedom is the bigger and more important idea. In Afghanistan as well as globally. Defining one's gender becomes a concern only after freedom is achieved. Then a person can begin to fill the word with new meaning. ~ Jenny Nordberg

The summer dresses are unpacked and hanging in the closet, two of them, pure cotton, which is better than synthetics like the cheaper ones, though even so, when it's muggy, in July and August, you sweat inside them. No worry about sunburn though, said Aunt Lydia. The spectacles women used to make of themselves. Oiling themselves like roast meat on a spit, and bare backs and shoulders, on the street, in public, and legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder those things used to happen. [...] And not good for the complexion, not at all, wrinkle you up like a dried apple. But we weren't supposed to care about our complexions any more, she'd forgotten that. ~ Margaret Atwood

Harassment and the ever-present suggestions of violence at this scale constantly reminds women and girls of their place. For the most part, girls' and women's experiences with harassment are still cloaked in silence, and we continue, as a global society, to peddle dangerous advice to girls about "staying safe." This isn't about safety. If it were, we'd teach boys, who are also subject to childhood molestation and risk, the same lessons, but we don't. It's about social control. ~ Soraya Chemaly

Women are just as motivated by the desire for power as men; it's just that our cultural ideas about power don't associate it with femininity. ~ Soraya Chemaly

Jesus is like us in every respect.
Don't brush this sentence off casually. Let it sink in, deep to the core of who you are. God is like us in every respect. He is like the transgender woman who is worried she'll be murdered while walking to her car after work. He is like the broken-hearted gay man who can't attend the church of his childhood. He is like the bisexual intersex person who doesn't conform to gender norms and endures the snide looks and sniggers of strangers. He is like these people just as much as the heterosexual man who is comfortable performing his gender in a way this society finds acceptable. ~ Suzanne DeWitt Hall

Adult women, all of us, have to come to grips with how we have been affected by gender norms, and how we have been silenced. We have to help our daughters. Understanding it within ourselves and helping our young girls stand up for themselves is one way. ~ Jane Fonda

Centuries of social conditioning has created a generational fear among women of being perceived as masculine.This is where all the shaming and labels come into play, which perpetuate the oppression of girls and women. As a society we shame girls with deep voices or masculine features and we shame boys with soft voices or effeminate gestures. Girls get called "too manly" and boys get called "too girly". The only solution I can think of is to be unashamedly "you". If that means challenging stereotypes and gender norms, go right ahead! ~ Miya Yamanouchi

I always wanted to experience what performance would be like without the fourth wall, so I formed a company in Australia, and we did avant-garde theater, playing with gender norms, conversations about race - we just had a box of issues that we wanted to subvert with our stories, with dance. ~ DeObia Oparei

I have taken a different approach. One that I hope is more easily accessible to the reader's emotional imagination, though less analytically systematic. I have summoned back into life again - through my own translations from a selection of popular Chinese novel sand poems - some of the imagined worlds in which Chinese have passed their daily reality during the last two hundred years. I have tried to convey something of what it felt like to be a Chinese, living in Chinese society, in different settings of status, age, and gender, and how this has changed over time. For reasons of method, I have looked at a small number of organically coherent emotional spaces, contained in individual works or parts of works, and considered them in detail. ... It would be pretending to more wisdom than I have to claim that the selection I have made is the result of a rigorous intellectual winnowing process from a harvest of widespread reading in late-imperial and modern Chinese literature. Honesty compels the admission that it is more the outcome of chance, serendipity, and whatever happened to catch my imagination, for reasons that I am probably in no position to do more than guess at. ... In so far as there has been a guiding principle behind my choices it has been the desire to show as much as the constraints of space allow of the contrasts among those in different social position, different periods, and different ideologies. ~ Mark Elvin

I had a lot of anger against the way things 'should be done' - conforming to social norms, ticking boxes to gain acceptance. Frustration at the pointlessness and predictability of smalltalk. Oh and a lot of anger about tea, which the British seem to use to avoid actually saying anything. ~ Rupert Friend

Becoming is the action that births our womanhood, rather than passive act of being born (an act none of us has a choice in). This short, powerful statement assured me that I have the freedom, in spite of and because of my birth, body, race, gender expectations, and economic resources, to define myself for myself and for others. ~ Janet Mock

Every man is afraid of women as far as I can see. ~ John Boyne

I'm not on my way anywhere, Harry sometimes tells inquirers. How to explain, in a culture frantic for resolution, that sometimes the shit stays messy? I do not want the female gender that has been assigned to me at birth. Neither do I want the male gender that transsexual medicine can furnish and that the state will award me if I behave in the right way. I don't want any of it. How to explain that for some, or for some at some times, this irresolution is OK - desirable, even (e.g., "gender hackers") - whereas for others, or for others at some times, it stays a source of conflict or grief? ~ Maggie Nelson

This condition in which women live is created out of, and defended by, a system of ideas represented by the world's religions, by psychoanalysis, by pornography, by sexology, by science and medicine and the social sciences. ~ Sheila Jeffreys

Studies show that girls - especially smarter ones - have severe problems in the area of self-confidence.
They consistently underestimate their own ability. When asked how they think they'll do on different tasks - whether the tasks are untried or ones they've encountered before - they give lower estimates than boys do, and in general underestimate their actual performance as well. One study even showed that the brighter the girl, the less expectations she has of being successful at intellectual tasks. (...)
Low self-confidence is the plague of many girls, and it leads to a host of related problems. Girls are highly suggestible and tend to change their minds about perceptual judgments if someone disagrees with them. They set lower standards for themselves. While boys are challenged by difficult tasks, girls try to avoid them. (...) Given her felt incompetence, it's not surprising that the little girl would hotfoot it to the nearest Other and cling for dear life. (...) As we can see, the problems of excessive dependence follow female children right into adulthood. ~ Colette Dowling

Women's liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. ~ Rebecca Solnit

I don't think this is a good idea. We all live on one planet so we cannot segregate the genders. If the Holy Mosque in Makkah, which is the holiest place on earth, does not segregate women, then why would the Ministry of Health want to segregate them?"
She also went on to object to the selection of a physician based only on gender and not competence, expressing her disdain as follows: "I prefer doctors who are professional in studying my situation and solving my problem, regardless of whether they are male or female. I cannot imagine a men's hospital without female nurses and doctors, and I also cannot imagine women's hospitals without men playing a role in them. ~ Qanta A. Ahmed

I can't explain exactly why it lives within me for so long and passionately. But race matters to me; racial equality matters to me, as does gender. There is something about these kinds of social injustices that go to the deep of me. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

She was a spiky teenager rebelling against the soul-suck mirror reflected back at her in her mother's blank stare, her question mark of a spine. Determined to beat the odds, she completed high school with distinction. But there was a caveat. Beydan was allowed to roam and educate herself – up to a point. On her eighteenth birthday her Father sat her down and held out his Rolexed wrist. Studded with crystals and flecks of diamond, the watch dazzled in the light. All Beydan could hear, however, was tick-tock-tick-tick-tick-tick - time to neatly fold all her hard work, to parcel up her progress, send it to the attic in her subconscious and let dust gather on her dreams. There was a lump in her throat and a stopwatch in her womb. ~ Diriye Osman

You have to appreciate that I never thought of myself as a man. I did not even think of myself as a boy. Of course, if you had asked me I would certainly have replied that that was what I was. It is not as if I had ever actively rejected the designation. I just never thought about it. I had no reason to think about it. I lived with my sister and my father and they were my whole world. I did not think of Cathy as a girl nor as a woman, I thought of her as Cathy. I did not think of Daddy as a man, though I knew that he was. I thought about him, likewise, as Daddy. ~ Fiona Mozley

People are willing to work free, and they are willing to work for a reasonable wage; but offer them just a small payment and they will walk away. ~ Dan Ariely

In colleges, there are no gender separations in courses of study, and students can freely choose their majors. There are no male and female math classes. But women generally choose college courses that pay less in the labor market. Those are the choices that women themselves make. Those choices contribute to the pay gap ... ~ Phyllis Schlafly

There are many things that matter much more than an editor's gender in shaping the direction of the leadership. ~ Nancy Gibbs

If anything, the people who moved to Jonestown should be remembered as noble idealists. They wanted to create a better, more equitable, society. They wanted their kids to be free of violence and racism. They rejected sexist gender roles. They believed in a dream. How terribly they were betrayed. ~ Julia Scheeres

The great thing about integrity is that it is truly no respecter of position or wealth or race or gender. It is not determined by shifting circumstances, cultural dynamics, or what you've previously achieved. From the moment you are born, you - and you alone - determine whether you will be a person of integrity. Integrity does not come in degrees - low, medium, or high. You either have integrity or you do not. In ~ Tony Dungy

What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender? ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the midst of these fine gentlemen with their great names and their ancient traditions of respectability, the two women sat face to face, exchanging tender glances, triumphant and supreme in the tranquil abuse of their sex, and their open contempt for the male. And the gentlemen applauded them. ~ Emile Zola

How is love between two people a sin? Love isn't about gender; it's about two souls uniting. ~ Alex Sanchez

Therefore the fiesta is not only an excess, a ritual squandering of the goods painfully accumulated during the rest of the year; it is also a revolt, a sudden immersion in the formless, in pure being. By means of the fiesta society frees itself from the norms it has established. It ridicules its gods, its principles, and its laws: it denies its own self. ~ Octavio Paz

You really work in those conditions?"

She, irritated by the contact, pulled her arm away, protesting: "And how do you work, the two of you, how do you work?"

They didn't answer. They worked hard, that was obvious. And at least Enzo in front of him, in the factory, women worn out by the work, by humiliations, by domestic obligations no less than Lila was. Yet now they were both angry because of the conditions _she_ worked in; they couldn't tolerate it. You had to hide everything from men. They preferred not to know, they preferred to pretend that what happened at the hands of the boss miraculously didn't happen to the women important to them and that - this was the idea they had grown up with - they had to protect her even at the risk of being killed. In the face of that silence Lila got even angrier. "Fuck off," she said, "you and the working class. ~ Elena Ferrante

Even though men have very little interest in wearing women's clothes, this has not prevented a gigantic industry from arising, dedicated to satisfying women's desires in fashion. Industries which provide makeup, hair styling, nail polish, hair removal, and weight loss services are similarly "biased" in the direction of females: they disproportionately serve women. These phenomena would be very difficult to understand on the feminist model that female wants are ignored or deprecated in the male's favor. ~ Walter Block

I want people to vote, I want them to pay attention. I want them to get up and go and vote and care about this country, inform themselves about the issues and I also want them to not vote for somebody just based on gender or race, based on qualification. ~ Kimberly Guilfoyle

Women made up 44% of Olympic competitors at London 2012 - the greatest show of gender equality in Olympic history. By comparison, in the 1908 Games men outnumbered women 53 to 1. ~ Donna De Varona

By playing these games about "arbitrary" gender roles, we have not succeeded in outlawing masculinity, but we have robbed it of much of its vocabulary. There are not very many acceptable ways to speak "masculine" anymore. We are all in denial, and the results are not pretty. ~ Douglas Wilson

We must focus on people as people, regardless of race, creed, color or gender. ~ Judge Mills Lane

Why is God described in the masculine gender? Does the predominantly masculine image of God reflect an ancient patriarchal society. Or has God been imagined through Man's mind. ~ Tarif Naaz

If you go to Europe, public bathrooms have any-gender sink areas and stalls for everyone to use. This is completely reasonable. It potentially involves the destruction of the urinal industry, which I think people would be happy to see go away. ~ Jill Soloway

Likability is a con, and we're falling for it[...] Is there such a thing as a likable woman? Can you think of one? And if she exists, could she be anything but the ultimate manifestation of everything we hate about the water we swim in, everything we're forced to be? Likability in a sexist, racist culture is not objective - it's compulsory femininity, the gender binary, invisible labor, whiteness, smallness, sweetness. It's letting them do it. If someone is universally likable, I don't trust that person. ~ Lindy West

These forms of criticism that make black women the privileged readers of a black woman writer go against Hurston's own grain. She saw things otherwise: "When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue. . . . the cosmic Zora emerges. . . . How can anybody deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me!" This is exactly right. No one should deny themselves the pleasure of Zora - of whatever color or background or gender. ~ Zadie Smith

Why are we always expected to share the picture of us with our boobs out on the beach, but dudes can share the candid one with their slobbery dog? ~ Christina Lauren

And what about ageing? Do men force the fear of ageing upon us
or are we ourselves terrified because we only know one kind of power
the power of youthful beauty?
Isn't it possible that if we became comfortable with other forms of female power, men might too? In her wonderful futurist novel, He, She, and It, Marge Piercy imagines a cyborg who is taught to love the bodies of older women. A delicious proposal
because it tells that whatever we may imagine can come true. Women often hate their own bodies. Sometimes I think that the most important things about having at least one relationship with someone of your own gender
especially if you are a woman
is to confront the female self-hatred and turn it into self-love. ~ Erica Jong

Jesus lives the challenge to our gender stereotypes and prejudices, but he is also wonderfully subversive in the ways he legitimates and empowers women. ~ Shane Claiborne

Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading. ~ Ian McEwan

I was born with the wrong body, being feminine by gender but male by sex, and I could achieve completeness only when the one was adjusted to the other. ~ Jan Morris

Dominance in an adaptation to anarchy and it serves no purpose in a society that has undergone a civilising process or in an international system regulated by agreements and norms. Anything that deflates the concept of dominance is likely to drive down the frequency of fights between individuals and wars. ~ Steven Pinker

The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Because when an artist has to assert that her intended audience is all humans rather than those who happen to be of her particular gender or race, what she's actually having to assert is the breadth and depth of her own humanity. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Never be so afraid of making mistakes that you stop taking actions.
~ Kaizen Quote ~ Kirtida Gautam

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. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In Somali culture hyper-masculinity is the most desired attribute in men. Femininity signifies softness, a lightness of touch: qualities that are aggressively pressed onto young girls and women. When a woman does not possess feminine traits, it is considered an act of mild social resistance. This applies equally to men who are not overtly masculine but the stakes are considerably amplified. If a Somali man is considered feminine he is deemed weak, helpless, pitiful: The underlying message being that femininity is inherently inferior to masculinity. ~ Diriye Osman

Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It is immensely gratifying to hear from fans from around the world where being a gay or lesbian teen, having feelings for someone of your own gender is simply not acceptable. We noticed that our show fills a huge void for large audiences in many different countries. That's why our choice of format for the show, the web series, is such a fortunate one as it allows viewers in those countries to feel acknowledged. While the series is not exclusively dealing with gay and lesbian issues, the fact that we don't sanitize it gives us truly global appeal, especially with the gay and lesbian community. In fact, demand is such that we are subtitling the show in French and perhaps other languages to even better reach those audiences. ~ Otessa Marie Ghadar

A military situation at its worst can inspire fighting men to perform at their best. ~ Marguerite Higgins

Forget all labels and simply live as a human, and you'll have all the morality in you - this morality is text-less - it is law-less - it is boundless - it's simply your whole being, beyond conditioning, beyond norms, beyond stereotypes, beyond definitions, beyond theories, beyond intellectualism, beyond ideologies, beyond sects and beyond images. That morality has no Naskar in it - it has no Nietzsche in it - it has no Schopenhauer in it - it has no bible, no quran, no vedas in it - nor has it any messiah or prophet whatsoever. ~ Abhijit Naskar