The problem with confronting people who make these comments is that the most you will get out of it is mockery and reprisal by superiors. You are just one girl who got offended by the...

…at Newsweek only girls with college degrees–and we were called “girls” then–were hired to sort and deliver the mail, humbly pushing our carts from door to door in our ladylike frocks and proper high-heeled shoes....

The message sent by this policy is that if women are to be accepted into the exclusive ranks of men, then they have to look like men: buttoned up, stuffy, and no-nonsense. As if to...

But too often men react to women in positions of power with misogyny, often in sexualized terms. I have heard men in such situations talk about how “I’d like to fuck that bitch and teach...

Madness and witchery as well as bestiality are conditions commonly associated with the use of the female voice in public.

Sylvia quotes Dick as telling her: “I am afraid the demands of wifehood and motherhood would preoccupy you too much to allow you to do the painting and writing you want.” Dick was sharp enough...

chick lit” and for the most part the term doesn’t bother me. I think it simply signals to readers that the book is about women, written for women (although many men enjoy my books), about...

Marines either know how to use an iron or they get married […]. The iron is less dangerous.

When a man dies, his wife is burned alive with him, but if the wife dies before her husband, the man does not suffer the same fate. If a man dies before marriage, he is...

When I look closely at dairy, I see the hurtful exploitation of specifically female bodies so that some people can enjoy sensual pleasures of consumption while others enjoy the psychological pleasure of collecting profits from...

The “feminine” woman is forever static and childlike. She is like the ballerina in an old-fashioned music box, her unchanging features tiny and girlish, her voice tinkly, her body stuck on a pin, rotating in...

When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women’s passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of...

If the first words out of your mouth are to cry ‘political correctness!’, … chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem.

Tom’s contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk in dirty places.

Life is sexist. If you were to get pregnant, you’re the one whose life changes. Nothing of significance changes for the boy. You’re the one people whisper about. I’ve seen that show, Teen Moms. All...

Finding The Man. Keeping The Man. Not scaring The Man, building up The Man, following The Man, soothing The Man, flattering The Man, deferring to The Man, changing your judgement for The Man, changing your...

Anyone who calls you “little lady” has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.

You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says...

Siddhartha wants liberation, Dante wants Beatrice, Frodo wants to get to Mount Doom—we all want something. Quest is elemental to the human experience. All road narratives are to some extent built on quest. If you’re...

There, little girl, don’t read,You’re fond of your books, I know,But Brother might mopeIf he had no hopeOf getting ahead of you.It’s dull for a boy who cannot lead.There, little girl, don’t read.

Madeleine Albright has said that there is ‘a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.’ What are the implications of this statement? Would it be an argument in favor of the...

Don’t call a woman a bitch. Call her an ass-hole. It still gets your point across and it’s not sexist.

When our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters are considered both different and inferior in the eyes of the God we worship, this belief tends to permeate society and everyone suffers.

Hombres necios que acusáisa la mujer sin razón,sin ver que sois la ocasiónde lo mismo que culpáis:si con ansia sin igualsolicitáis su desdén,,por qué queréis que obren biensi las incitáis al mal?Cambatís su resistenciay luego,...

She said my glasses made me look like a butch jock’s locker room bitch.

I love the word ‘fashion.’ That’s why I’m using it in the title of this book. Fashion is about change and about creating clothes within a historical context. To me, dismissing fashion as silly or...

In 1995, each cast at The Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the...

There can have been no doubt in Eleanor’s mind as to what was expected of her as a wife. In her day, women were supposed to be chaste both inside and outside marriage, virginity and...

Sylvia rarely flattered the men in her life- she envied them. She was far more likely to compete with a man than a woman. In her journal she describes this jealousy of which she is...

It’s a SLAVE MENTALITY. IT’S A SLAVE MENTALITY!!!”I tried to explain what I meant.I talked about how Ellen Willis had a theory that women didn’t know what their true sexuality was like, because they’d been...

I can reverse the polarity of your ions!” Like in one big flash everybody’s Doctor Strange. I like the guys that can stick to walls and change into sand and stuff. I don’t understand anything...

Those who are so eager for women and girls to go back to the kitchen might think again about just what it is we might be up to in there. You can plan a lot...

Hell of a sight. She let out a scream and just fell to pieces. Can’t say I blame her. Like I said, this sort of thing is not for the female temperament.” He directed that...

Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I’m hoping...

Tú me quieres alba,Me quieres de espumas,Me quieres de nácar.Que sea azucenaSobre todas, casta.De perfume tenue.Corola cerradaNi un rayo de lunaFiltrado me haya.Ni una margaritaSe diga mi hermana.Tú me quieres nívea,Tú me quieres blanca,Tú me...

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

Surely, of all creatures that have life and will, we women are the most wretched. When, for an extravagant sum, we have bought a husband, we must then accept him as possessor of our body.

Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.

There’s no being out too late in Whileaway, or up too early, or in the wrong part of town, or unescorted. You cannot fall out of the kinship web and become sexual prey for strangers,...

As I have explained in earlier chapters, abusiveness has little to do with psychological problems and everything to do with values and beliefs. Where do a boy’s values about partner relationships come from? The sources...

For a female to write about her feelings, and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that’s taking something...

Yes, that’s what my mother used to do.” It went on to talk about how a woman could climb Everest, teach schoolchildren in Cambodia and win the Booker Prize but some people would still think...

After all, you can argue – argue until you cry – about whatmodern, codified misogyny is; but straight-up ungentlemanliness,of the kind his mother would clatter the back of his head for, isinarguable. It doesn’t need...

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on...

Judge: But why would that make it possible for you to fool Monsieur Gallimard? Please–get to the point.Song: One, because when he finally met his fantasy woman, he wanted more than anything to believe that...

When a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, requests breakfast and taxi money. In the morning that lady...

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.

You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of...

Me Tarz-tosterone; You Estro-Jane

Anyway, it’s like with bikes,’ said the first speaker authoritatively. ‘I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they...