Gender Socialisation Quotes

All men are 'real men', whether they wear KingGees or a pink tutu. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

For a moment, Milly couldn't breathe as her anger flew out of her chest and into her mouth. She ran her tongue over it, hard and bitter, then swallowed it again. ~ Roxane Gay

Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus instead we are all people. Deal with it. ~ Shahla Khan

Even though you're not my type, gender wise, you're certainly my type, person-wise. ~ David Levithan

Emer was troubled at how all interpretation now devolved in matters of race or gender or religion. There was no art anymore, even in children's stories. Why wasn't the crow female? Why was The Creator a He? Wasn't Bald Eagle insensitive to men with hair loss? This is how we spend our time now. ~ David Duchovny

Of course, it is true that plastic surgeries and sex reassignments are "artificial," but then again so are the exercise bikes we work out on, the antiwrinkle moisturizers we smear on our faces, the dyes we use to color our hair, the clothes we buy to complement our figures, and the TV shows, movies, magazines, and billboards that bombard us with "ideal" images of gender, size, and beauty that set the standards that we try to live up to in the first place. The class systems based on attractiveness and gender are extraordinarily "artificial" - yet only those practices that seem to subvert those classes (rather than reaffirm them) are ever characterized as such. ~ Julia Serano

America's liberal arts universities have long been safe zones for leftist thinking, protected ivory towers for the pseudo-elite who earn their livings writing papers nobody reads about gender roles in the poetry of Maya Angelou. ~ Ben Shapiro

Sex separation in the classroom leads to a bullshit socio-economic situation perpetuated by people with good intentions. ~ Darnell Lamont Walker

You know you're in love when the most interesting conversation you have with the opposite gender is about the one you claim to be in love with. ~ Andrew King

I hear my father's voice. "Political differences divided what used to be America into The Nationalist States and The Patriot States: Then Nats declared war on the Patriots. Why?"
Olmo answers in an overly enthusiastic tone. "Because they couldn't agree on the division of derritoryes!"
"Territories," corrects Dad.
"That, too," says Olmo cheerfully. ~ Mya Robarts

I think we won't be able to understand the operations of trans-phobia, homophobia, if we don't understand how certain kinds of links are forged between gender and sexuality in the minds of those who want masculinity to be absolutely separate from femininity and heterosexuality to be absolutely separate from homosexuality. ~ Judith Butler

All the gentlemen accorded her the courtesy of standing when she entered the chamber. One second of recognition, then her gender would be completely forgotten when the discussions began.
~ From The Earl, the Vow, and the Plain Jane by Cheryl Bolen ~ Cheryl Bolen

The psychological need to avoid independence - the "wish to be saved" - seemed to me an important issue, quite probably the most important issue facing women today. We were brought up to depend on a man and to feel naked and frightened without one. We were taught to believe that as women we cannot stand alone, that we are too fragile, too delicate, needful of protection. So that now, in these enlightened days, when our intellects tell us to stand on our own two feet, unresolved emotional issues drag us down. ~ Colette Dowling

where do all of the sad girls go?

in this world that requires us
to write poems about the people who have their hands
wrapped around our necks for the very people who have
their hands wrapped around our necks to recognize
that they indeed have their hands wrapped around our
necks? ~ Alok Vaid-Menon

I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Though Jones had formerly believed himself in the very prime of youth and vigor, his first encounter with Lady Bellaston both vexed and puzzled him. For though his own youthful appetites were quickly sated, hers were ravenous and almost beyond his power to satisfy. Her kisses and caresses were a source of inexpressible delight; yet when all was over it was he who collapsed into the most profound slumber. Early the next morning she took him shopping, her manner fresh and cheerful. Jones could not fathom her spritely behavior. And in spite of all his best endeavors, he could scarcely keep his eyes open. ~ Henry Fielding

Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers and boys used to dress like their fathers.
Now girls drink like their fathers and boys dress like their mothers. ~ Habeeb Akande

Until we as a gender refuse to wear any shoe that would be uncomfortable to walk a mile in, we're perfectly screwed. ~ Cheryl Strayed

As a result, much of what Luke has to say on the matter of gender lies hidden under layers of interpretation that we have received from earlier generations. It is therefore urgent, for the good of the church, that we continue unearthing what has been hidden. In this task, the many women who today are devoted to the careful study of the biblical text are making an important contribution. ~ Justo L. Gonzalez

We evaluate people based on stereotypes (gender, race, nationality, and age, among others).4 Our stereotype of men holds that they are providers, decisive, and driven. Our stereotype of women holds that they are caregivers, sensitive, and communal. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Sporting events like the Olympics have developed and maintained a clear message of promoting gender equality as an essential criterion in the success of any international event. ~ Richard Attias

Disney will never make a movie about my life story, and that's a shame
I'd make a really cute animated creature. ~ Kate Bornstein

What feminists refer to as microaggressions, the rest of us sane adults call life....The concept of microaggressions encourages women to think that every single thing in the world is, or should be, about them. It encourages breathless levels of narcissism, solipsism and just plain delusion....Feminism encourages women to believe that they have the same reasoning and coping abilities as toddlers. No thanks. ~ Janet Bloomfield

Individual heterosexual women came to the movement from relationships where men were cruel, unkind, violent, unfaithful. Many of these men were radical thinkers who participated in movements for social justice, speaking out on behalf of the workers, the poor, speaking out on behalf of racial justice. However when it came to the issue of gender they were as sexist as their conservative cohorts. ~ Bell Hooks

Love cannot be controlled. It will flow wherever it chooses. It is an essential part of our nature and thus inherently free. Love has no respect for boundaries that would prohibit it based on age, gender, race, religion, class, politics, or ability. It is individuals striving to be happy and, as such, love is an oppositional power to state and institutional authority. ~ Rod Dubey

Stupidity is not ascribed to gender. ~ Joanna Shupe

That's the trouble about the good guys and the bad guys! They're all guys! ~ Terry Pratchett

The "male gaze," as a shaper of my life's choices, is largely incidental. Gender ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

They were happier now than they would ever be again. A tenpenny tea set made Cam happy for days. She heard them stamping and crowing on the floor above her head the moment they woke. They came bustling along the passage. Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as roses, staring, wide awake, as if this coming into the dining-room after was a positive event to them, and so on, with one thing after another, all day long, until she went up to say good-night to them, and found them netted in their cots like birds among cherries and raspberries, still making up stories about some little bit of rubbish-–something they heard, something they had picked up in the garden. They had all their little treasures. . . And so she went down and said to her husband, Why must they grow up and lose it all? Never will they be so happy again. And he was angry. Why take such a gloomy view of life? he said. It is not sensible. For it was odd; and he believed it to be true; that with all his gloom and desperation he was happier, more hopeful on the whole, than she was. Less exposed to human worries––perhaps that was it. He had always his work to fall back on. ~ Virginia Woolf

We have the data to prove to men that gender equality is not a zero-sum game, but a win-win. ~ Michael Kimmel

Most of the people on the Cloud Ark were going to have to be women.
There were other reasons for it besides just making more babies. Research on the long-term effects of spaceflight suggested that women were less susceptible to radiation damage than men. They were smaller on average, requiring less space, less food, less air. And sociological studies pointed to the idea that they did better when crammed together in tight spaces for long periods of time. This was controversial, as it got into fraught topics of nature vs. nurture and whether gender identity was a social construct or a genetic program. ~ Neal Stephenson

When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women. ~ Jessica Valenti

The biggest deficit in terms of gender equality at Ozon lay in our IT department. So we made a decision, along with our key IT leaders, to remove all filters and systemically interview all the women who apply. ~ Maelle Gavet

The clarity of gender makes possible the human dialectic. Let the lines of balanced tension go slack and the structure dissolves into the ooze of androgyny and narcissism. ~ Bill Vaughan

Cosmopolitanism seeks a _we_ that does not rely on the exclusion of _others_ but, instead, recognizes and confirms each other as part of the planetary _we_. The cosmopolitan _we_ is not grounded in a monolithic sameness but in a constant alterity and _ethical singularity_ of each individual human person regardless of one's national origin and belonging, religious affiliation, gender, race and ethnicity, class ability, or sexuality. ~ Namsoon Kang

Smoke and mirrors' is a useful metaphor for the ways in which organised abuse has chided conceptualisation and understanding. The chapter provides an overview of cite often incendiary debates over organised abuse before going on to suggest that critical theories on gender, crime and intersubjectivity may offer new insights into the phenomenon. ~ Michael Salter

If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance ( ... ); as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out [in his History of England], she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. ~ Virginia Woolf

What matters that I was born a woman, if I can cure your misfortunes? I pay my share of tolls and taxes, by giving men to the State. But you, you miserable greybeards, you contribute nothing to the public charges; on the contrary, you have wasted the treasure of our forefathers, as it was called, the treasure amassed in the days of the Persian Wars. You pay nothing at all in return; and into the bargain you endanger our lives and liberties by your mistakes. Have you one word to say for yourselves? ... Ah! don't irritate me, you there, or I'll lay my slipper across your jaws; and it's pretty heavy. ~ Aristophanes

Love is not getting high on fantasies of romance, the perfect lover, absolute happiness and sexual ecstasy. Love is based on a two way communication and respect, and that only exists between equals. ~ Anselma Dell'Olio

The union of feminine and masculine energies within the individual is the basis of all creation. ~ Shakti Gawain

Understanding the shadow masculine or shadow feminine in oneself is
crucial not only for enhancing one 's own wholeness but for championing
justice between genders and all diverse groups in the community. If the
shadow is not recognized and dealt with, it will dominate an individual or ... community, resulting in untold suffering. ~ Carolyn Baker

So far, the items on that list of brain differences that are thought to explain the gender status quo have always, in the end been crossed off. But before this happens, speculation becomes elevated to the status of fact, especially in the hands of some popular writers. Once in the public domain these supposed facts about male and female brains become part of the culture, often lingering on well past their best-by dates. Here they reinforce and legitimate the gender stereotypes that interact with our minds, helping to create the very gender inequalities that the neuroscientific claims seek to explain. ~ Cordelia Fine

Gender relationships, which are tough for people to deal with, are key to whether a society orients to domination or partnership in all its relations. ~ Riane Eisler

That was a mite tacky, ma'am ... even for you."
Elizabeth let her mouth fall open. "Even for me? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It just means that people with" --He stared pointedly-- "your upbringing aren't usually the most polite folks around." ...
"Listen Ranslett, if I've offended you I certainly didn't mean t--"
"Sure you did. You just meant to do it in a way that would make yourself look bad." He turned to look at her more fully, and his eyes narrowed, though not in malice.
"When you've got something to say that isn't kind, Miss Westbrook, there's no way to couch it so that it is. Or to hide from how it makes you look when you do. That's something us good ol' Southern boys learn real quick about women."
His accent thickened, comically so. "Your gender may say things with a smile, all soft and gentle-like, but some of you --- granted, not all --- have a dagger hidden in your skirts. Us country boys may not be as quick as some, ma'am, but it doesn't take us too long to figure out who those woman are." He winked at her. "We just check each other's backs for the bloodstains." He stood and reached behind him as though feeling for something. "Yep, feelin' a little sticky back there. ~ Tamera Alexander

Eating is our earliest metaphor, preceding our consciousness of gender difference, race, nationality, and language. We eat before we talk. ~ Margaret Atwood