Male Violence Quotes

[Rape is] nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. ~ Susan Brownmiller

One group of people that get a lot of PTSD are soldiers who have been in combat. You know who gets more PTSD, has higher rates of PTSD? Women who have escaped prostitution. That tells me that the war that men wage against women is actually worse than the wars they wage against each other. ~ Lierre Keith

What postmodernism gives us instead is a multicultural defense for male violence - a defense for it wherever it is, which in effect is a pretty universal defense. ~ Catharine MacKinnon

It seems highly unlikely that any mother operating within patriarchy has not received sufficiently stressful messaging about her "duties." But the bad mother is patriarchy's saving throw, its ultimate loophole; by moving the blame for male violence back one generation, it makes guilty parties out of the women who are its victims. ~ Sady Doyle

Surveys suggest that about one third of all women worldwide face beatings in the home. Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

If you go door to door in our nation and talk to citizens about domestic violence, almost everyone will insist that they do not support male violence against women, that they believe it to be morally and ethically wrong. However, if you then explain that we cannot end male violence against women by challenging patriarchy, and that means no longer accepting the notion that men should have more rights and privileges than women because of biological difference or that men should have the power to rule over women, that is when the agreement stops. There is a gap between the values they claim to hold and their willingness to do the work of connecting thought and action, theory and practice to realize these values and thus create a more just society. ~ Bell Hooks

Girls often feel very powerless in their lives and their families, and they kind of mimic the male violence as a way to try and get some of that male power that they see lacking in their own lives. ~ Meda Chesney-Lind

But why does it matter what we call it, as long as there is concerted action to respond to and prevent such crimes? It matters because if we really want to fix something that is broken, if we want to heal these fractures in our society, then we need to understand their causes. If we do not, then we will forever continue to place giant sticking plasters over the wounds left by this violence, trying to bandage over losses that can never be replaced. As long as this violence continues, it is obviously the case that we do have to address the symptoms, but my argument is that we must also address the causes if we want a long-term reduction or even, perhaps, the eventual eradication of male violence against women. ~ Finn Mackay

This is a patriarchal truism that most people in our society want to deny. Whenever women thinkers, especially advocates of feminism, speak about the widespread problem of male violence, folks are eager to stand up and make the point that most men are not violent. They refuse to acknowledge that masses of boys and men have been programmed from birth on to believe that at some point they must be violent, whether psychologically or physically, to prove that they are men. ~ Bell Hooks

Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships. ~ Andrea Dworkin

History reveals that groups of human beings are capable of systematically killing members of other human groups. Humans have killed other humans: six million Jews, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans, and over 110,000 Japanese, the latter within a matter of seconds at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John Hodge (1975) estimates that 150 million lives were lost in the slave trade of blacks from Africa. More than 5,000 blacks were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1939. Just as a child who witnesses her mother being battered by her father feels physically threatened, women who witness male-male violence also feel physically threatened. The observation of violence among others creates fear of physical violence and thus constitutes emotional violence. ~ Dee L.R. Graham

Not all men practice violence against women but all women live with the threat of male violence every single day. All over the Earth. ~ Fuad Alakbarov

Most girls, however much they resent their mothers, do become very much like them. Rebellion can rarely survive the aversion therapy that passes for being brought up female. Male violence acts directly on the girl through her father or brother or uncle or any number of male professionals or strangers, as it did and does on her mother, and she too is forced to learn to conform in order to survive. A girl may, as she enters adulthood, repudiate the particular set of males with whom her mother is allied, run with a different pack as it were, but she will replicate her mother's patterns in acquiescing to male authority within her own chosen set. Using both force and threat, men in all camps demand that women accept abuse in silence and shame, tie themselves to hearth and home with rope made of self-blame, unspoken rage, grief, and resentment. ~ Andrea Dworkin

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. ~ David Blankenhorn

So many women have experienced horrific forms of male violence throughout their lives, and why isn't there a song about how you get depressed because of it? ~ Kathleen Hanna

Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined, ~ Rebecca Solnit

Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice. ~ Robin Morgan

Perhaps the body has its own memory system, like the invisible meridian lines those Chinese acupuncturists always talk about. Perhaps the body is unforgiving, perhaps every cell, every muscle and fragment of bone remembers each and every assault and attack. Maybe the pain of memory is encoded into our bone marrow and each remembered grievance swims in our bloodstream like a hard, black pebble. After all, the body, like God, moves in mysterious ways.

From the time she was in her teens, Sera has been fascinated by this paradox - how a body that we occupy, that we have worn like a coat from the moment of our birth - from before birth, even - is still a stranger to us. After all, almost everything we do in our lives is for the well-being of the body: we bathe daily, polish our teeth, groom our hair and fingernails; we work miserable jobs in order to feed and clothe it; we go to great lengths to protect it from pain and violence and harm. And yet the body remains a mystery, a book that we have never read. Sera plays with this irony, toys with it as if it were a puzzle: How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after al ~ Thrity Umrigar

If [George] Zimmerman had been arrested for domestic violence, Trayvon Martin might still be alive. ~ Gloria Steinem

I wish everyone was a sci-fi geek because then there would be no violence in the world. There'd be no wars. There'd only be people e-mailing each other. ~ Claudia Christian

The range of variation in the female far exceeds the range of variation in the male. ~ Alfred Kinsey

Oh for Christ sakes. Ay carrumba, chimichanga. I have no idea what you're saying, but shut your pretty pie hole. ~ Cristin Harber

Overcrowding in the cities is producing a collective madness in which irrational violence flourishes because man needs more space in which to be than the modern city allows. ~ Gore Vidal

Let no one consider themselves to be the 'armour' of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression! ~ Pope Francis

What do you know about me, Isabeau?"

He leaned forward, and I forced myself to stay still instead of shying away. He was so close that I could smell the subtle notes of his cologne: musk and wood with a hint of leather.

What did he want me to say? That everyone said he was an ogre? Or that they all wanted to sleep with him anyway?

"I..."

"Go on. You won't hurt my feelings."

He was still smiling, slight dimples visible in both cheeks. The sight was destracting, to say the least.

"I know that you're the youngest CEO and partner in the company's history, and I know that you earned the spot by working your way up after graduate school instead of using your inheritance as a crutch."

"Everyone knows that. What do you know about me? The real stuff. None of this press release bullshit."

I looked down at my hands, anything not to have to look up at his face so close to me.

"Um. People say... they say that you're scary. And that your assistants don't last long."

He laughed, a deep, warm sound that seemed to fill up the office. I glanced up to see him smirking at me. I relaxed my grip on the desk a little. Maybe I wasn't being fired after all.

"What else do they say?"

Oh, God. He can't possibly want me to tell him everything. Does he? The look on his face confirmed that he did. It was clear by the way he looked at me that I wasn't leaving this office un ~ Delilah Fawkes

This is no time to let down our guard on youth violence. Research demonstrates that appropriate interventions made during or prior to adolescence can direct young people away from violence toward healthy and constructive lives. ~ David Satcher

When my husband Charles passed away in 2000, I took over as chair of our family's foundation. As I was mourning his loss, I also had to keep the foundation moving forward and to chart a course into what was then a very male-dominated philanthropic world. ~ Lynn Schusterman

We know what you are thinking. It is not girls who need lessons in how to talk on the telephone.
We are experts at it.
Some of us could even medal in it.
The problem is the boys. And they need to shape up.
True, true, true.
However.
The boys are not going to shape up. They are not going to read magazines or informational textbooks such as this one that tell them how to talk to girls on the telephone. And they are not going to magically figure out how to converse either. It is a demonstrated fact that even bona fide boyfriends such as Finn and Jackson and Kaleb are hit with paralyzing stupidity and boringness on the telephone, and you, my girlfriends, you are the only ones who can do anything about it.
Some tried-and-true tips
1. No feelings. Not if you can possibly avoid it. Feelings in person only.
2. No long silences. The male of the species hates long silences. If he is silent, say, "I gotta go, I'll see you later." And hang up. This is mysterious and alluring. And if it is not, at least you don't have any more awkwardness.
3. Some people will tell you that you shouldn't call guys, you should wait for them to call you. Hello? This is the twenty-first century. We can call them.
4. But have a reason. Don't call "just to talk," because they have nothing to talk about. Have a story to tell them, or ask if they watched some TV show just now, or ask about homework, or make a plan for the weekend. ~ E. Lockhart

Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else's blood. This is why our thinkers feel free to say just about anything. ~ Albert Camus

We are a country of excess. So it's not the violence, per se, but the exacerbation and constant repetition. ~ Norman Lear

Finding violence against women means opening to the great power of women, the mystery of women, the heart of women, the wild unending sexuality and creativity of women – and not being afraid. ~ Eve Ensler

We live in a time of global transformation. The power on Earth no longer lies with the forces of imperialistic globalisation, but with those groups who are now connecting with the forces of transformation. It is not terror and violence, but trust and solidarity which will lead the new world. This is not just a wishful dream, but the objective reality of the coming epoch. ~ Dieter Duhm

One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

And the violence we will reap,
Is bred from the anger we sow. ~ William Martin

One must do no violence to nature, nor model it in conformity to any blindly formed chimera. ~ Janos Bolyai

I understand why my male followers like me. ~ Kate Upton

The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe. ~ G.K. Chesterton

FOR A VERY LONG MOMENT WE ALL STOOD IN A FROZEN tableau of hostile indecision. Debs and Recht stared at each other, Deke breathed through his mouth, and I tried to decide whether assisting the fallen woman was technically within my jurisdiction as a blood-spatter analyst. And then there was a clatter at the front door and I heard a minor commotion behind me. "Shit," a male voice called out, quite clearly. "Shit, shit, shit." It was impossible to argue with the general sentiment, but nevertheless I turned around to see if I could gather some specifics. A middle-aged man hurried toward us. He was tall and soft-looking and had close-cropped gray hair and a matching beard. He slid to one knee beside Mrs. Aldovar and picked up her hand. "Hey, Emily? Honey?" he said as he patted her hand. "Come on, Em." I ~ Jeff Lindsay

I became a sales manager at Digital Equipment, promoted from within the sales team. My peers were less than excited that I had gotten the job, especially one of my male peers who said he just wasn't going to work for a woman. ~ Carol Bartz

In the violence of overcoming, in the disorder of my laughter and my sobbing, in the excess of raptures that shatter me, I seize on the similarity between a horror and a voluptuousness that goes beyond me, between an ultimate pain and an unbearable joy! ~ Georges Bataille

Women were responsible for raising next generation of citizens, they themselves needed to be well educated in order to teach their children. She never believed as many men of her time, women were innately inferior to men, she conceded they had different traits and talents, which fitted them for a social role different from men's. ...Marriage and family were among the basic props of social order, anything that undermined them threatened the social order, she believed. Rich or poor, male or female, every person had his place in society and must fulfill his roles and duties, or chaos would result. ...However brilliant a woman's talents may be, she ought never to shine at the expense of her husband. ...women should confine themselves to domestic government... ~ Lynne Withey

Hungry people cannot be good at learning or producing anything, except perhaps violence. ~ Pearl Bailey

For within the very structure of family life, in families that do or did embrace the male religions, are the almost invisibly accepted social customs and life patterns that reflect the one-time strict adherence to the biblical scriptures. Attitudes towards double-standard premarital virginity, double-standard marital fidelity, the sexual autonomy of women, illegitimacy, abortion, contraception, rape, childbirth, the importance of marriage and children to women, the responsibilities and role of women in marriage, women as sex objects, the sexual identification of passivity and aggressiveness, the roles of women and men in work or social situations, women who express their ideas, female leadership, the intellectual activities of women, the economic activities and needs of women and the automatic assumption of the male as breadwinner and protector have all become so deeply ingrained that feelings and values concerning these subjects are often regarded, by both women and men, as natural tendencies or even human instinct. ~ Merlin Stone

We're in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology. No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood. Sexuality has been politicized--"Don't ask any questions!" "No discussion!" "Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!" And thus in this period of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There's nothing interesting being written--in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions.

So I say there is a big parallel between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton--aside from their initials! Young feminists need to understand that this abusive behavior by powerful men signifies their sense that female power is much bigger than they are! These two people, Clinton and Cosby, are emotionally infantile--they're engaged in a war with female power. It has something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power--and this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of inadequacy.


Now, in order to understand that, people would have to read my first book, "Sexual Personae"--which of course is far too complex for the ordinary feminist or academic mind! It's too complex because it requires a sense of the ambivalence of human life. Everything is not black and white, for heaven's sake! We are formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories fr ~ Camille Paglia

If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'
Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'
Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'
I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'
I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'
What? Sure--yes, sir.'
Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'
Why . . . no, sir!'
Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Men: their petulance, their sexual deviance, the way they resorted to violence when they wanted to control ~ Robert Bryndza

Blessed with the Beta Male imagination, he spent much of his life squinting into the future so he might spot ways in which the world was conspiring to kill him ... ~ Christopher Moore

I have sat with the mothers who have lost addicted sons. I have sat with families of kids who have been killed in drug-related gang violence. I have been to the prisons. I have seen the effects. At some point in time, I felt I had to do something other than write a novel about it, that I needed to try to make some sort of contribution, at least try to make some sort of difference in the real world. ~ Don Winslow

Dating takes too much time. I wanted you. I took you. You're mine. She shivered. Women's lib could say what it wanted. Being claimed by a sexy male still held loads of seductive charm. ~ Eve Langlais

After a few months you stop noticing every incarnation of radicalism and violence. It is so saturated into your reality that it practically fades into the scenery. ~ Max Blumenthal

While boys and men could roam freely about town, my mother and I could not go out without a male relative to accompany us, even if it was a five-year-old boy! This was the tradition. ~ Malala Yousafzai

She raised her eyes to his. They had both come from misery, she thought, and survived it. They had been drawn together through violence and tragedy, and had overcome it. They walked different paths and had found a mutual route.
Some things last, she thought. Some ordinary things. Like love. ~ J.D. Robb

Up until I was about thirty, I had a strong preference for men over women. I mean specifically as friends, as people to talk to. If a male and a female exactly alike were to enter a room, in my deformed perceptions the male was magnified into glory. It wasn't until this primitive preference began to expire, for whatever reasons, that it began to bother me that it had previously existed. ~ Rivka Galchen

When looking at the attributes associated with masculinity in the US, the same researchers identified the following; winning, emotional control, risk-taking, violence, dominance, playboy, self-reliance, primacy at work, power over women, disdain for homosexuality, and pursuit of status. ~ Brene Brown

Poe, you wiener, get your ass over here!"
"Shut Up! I ain't a wiener!"
Broken, adolescent male laughter echoed through the night air, and if I hadn't been so damned mad, I'd have laughed too. Something about hearing a group of idiotic pubescent fifteen-year-old boys say wiener just cracked me up. ~ Elle Jasper

Who shall measure the heat and violence of a poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body? ~ Virginia Woolf

I am cursed with a right leg that arouses the desire of any male dog that happens to be passing. I used to think that this only happened to me but I've discovered that many people have the same problem. They have a femme fatale limb. ~ Jasper Carrott

Last month she'd read that a man's connective tissue aligned horizontally with the skin, whereas a female's went perpendicular - which was why women got lumpy cellulite and men didn't. And doesn't that totally prove that God is male? ~ Cherise Sinclair

But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. ~ Nelson Mandela

The reactionary of any kind condemns sexual pleasure because it stimulates and repulses him at the same time. He is unable to solve the conflict within him between sexual demands and moralistic inhibitions. The revolutionary refutes the perverse, unhealthy kind of pleasure, because it is not his kind of pleasure, because it is not the sexuality of the future, but the sexuality which results from the conflict between instinct and morals, the sexuality of authoritarian society, a debased, smutty, pathological sexuality. ~ Wilhelm Reich

Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised. ~ Marilyn Manson

I've never isolated role models based on gender. I have more male role models due to the mere fact that I've done business with more of them and they're leaders within the verticals I work. Of those, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, is an entrepreneur and personal friend that I have a great deal of respect for. ~ Amy Jo Martin

No other form of violence is legitimate. It is never acceptable to use violence to solve a problem. Whether personal or political. ~ Gloria Steinem