Popular quotes about Gender! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 25
Gender is used as a control mechanism that's just wrong. Gender is never anything to struggle with; gender is something to play with. Once you're free of the rules that all these hierarchical, oppressive systems place on gender, that's the tricky part.
Kate BornsteinThere may be countries [where] there's no gender inequality in schooling, even in higher education, but [where there is] gender inequality in high business. Japan is a very good example of that. You might find cases in the United States where at one level women's equality has progressed tremendously. You don't have the kind of problem of higher women's mortality as you see in South Asia, North Africa, and East Asia, China, too, and yet for American women there are some fields in which equality hasn't yet come.
Amartya SenIt seems to me to be kind of inescapable that one has to be interested in the issue of gender and gender equality. I donยt really expect any credit for going in that direction. Itยs the only natural direction to go in. Why is it that some people donยt see that as so patently obvious as it should be?
Amartya SenThere's a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they're mismatched. That's all it is. It's not complicated, it's not a neurosis. It's a mix-up. It's a birth defect, like a cleft palate.
Chaz BonoMy own take on the word "transgender" is that it's an umbrella term for anyone who breaks any rules, laws, guidelines or protocol of gender. So, to really be an ally, it's important that you recognize and embrace your own transgender nature. Really, I haven't met a single person who doesn't break some rule of gender. In other words, we will assimilate you. Resistance is futile.
Kate BornsteinThere is too much ideological conformity in gender studies. The true-believers fashion the theories, write the textbooks and teach the students. When journalists, policymakers, and legislators address topics such as the wage gap, gender and education, or women's health, they turn to these experts for enlightenment. For the most part, they peddle misinformation, victim politics, and sophistry. They claim that their teachings represent the academic consensus, but that is only because they have excluded all dissenters.
Christina Hoff SommersDining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat - and drink! - with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.
M. F. K. FisherI think everyone is bi, right? There's no such thing as sexual orientation, or race, or gender. Those are all obsolete man-made concepts.
Eric AndreI bring the experiences of women. As a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister. That is who I am. Those experiences are part of me. And it is part of our American journey that we have moved through so much of what used to hold people back because of gender, because of race.
Hillary ClintonI think feminism's a bit misinterpreted. It was about casting off all gender roles. There's nothing wrong with a man holding a door open for a girl. But we sort of threw away all the rules, so everybody's confused. And dating becomes a sloppy, uncomfortable, unpleasant thing.
Zosia MametCapitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.
Thomas SowellI feel very lucky to have served under some great bosses. The majority of them were men, but I have also had a few women. In many ways, I feel like media is pretty neutral when it comes to gender.
Megan AlexanderWith women, you always have to make an educated decision to figure out what they're thinking. It's not one that's necessarily sympathetic, always. Of course, we're all human beings, but the gender thing is big thing. And a great thing.
Will OldhamOur individual wholeness includes a masculine and a feminine side, which are slowly (or not so slowly) wrung out of us, depending on which gender you are.
Peter BuffettAmo, amas, I love a lass, As a cedar tall and slender; Sweet cowslip's grace is her nominative case, And she's of the feminine gender.
John O'KeefePainting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.
Kehinde WileyWe chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.
Jon MeachamWe come from the future, essentially, because we have all these ideas about gender equality, sexual freedom, and these are not shared by the working class, the peasantry among whom we work.
Vijay PrashadI feel dance and pop music genres are extremely female and extremely gay. When it comes to art and pop culture, queers are f - king weirdos. We don't have gender rules that tell us what we can and can't be. We just make it up as we go along. We have full creative license to be whatever we want to be.
Beth DittoScientists who do deny their politicsโwho claim to be objective and unemotional about gender while living in a world where even boats and automobiles are identified by sexโare fooling both themselves and the public at large.
Anne Fausto-SterlingThe examples of female success stories are important on the global scale, as they help to disseminate the idea of gender equality and to spread the roots for the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and democratic values among different cultures, societies and traditions.
Dalia GrybauskaiteDefining men as the perpetrators of all violence is a viciously immoral judgment of an entire gender. And defining women as inherently nonviolent condemns us to the equally restrictive role of sweet, meek, and weak.
Katherine DunnI have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex, and my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them.
Mary Wortley MontaguYou wanna be counter-culture? You wanna be a total rebel? Get a job! You wanna be counter-culture, totally alternative, radical? Be a virgin until you get married...to a person of the opposite gender. And then stay married and pump out some kids and pay your taxes and read the Bible, you freak. You'll be just totally a rebel.
Mark DriscollWe had so many milestones in America. We were on our way to universal healthcare. We had gay marriage. We were talking about gender fluidity and trans issues openly and discussing them with respect. It was almost to the point where educating people about transgender rights wasn't an issue. We were including trans people as a normal part of our conversations instead of seeing their presence as this shocking thing to the system. We forgot that those things can be taken away from you because there are people in the world that, for whatever f - king reason, can't live and let live.
Beth DittoIndividual 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 HooksI donโt want to make an incremental change in some technology in my life. I want to create a whole new technology, and one that is aimed at helping humanity at all levels regardless of geography or ethnicity or age or gender.
Elizabeth HolmesThe United Nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
UnknownFrom what I understand from talking with older friends and feminists, I think that once I enter the workforce and start to think about marriage and having children, my gender will probably eclipse my feminist identity in terms of marginalization. Discrimination in terms of hiring and in the workplace are still real according to statistics. I also think, as a feminist, figuring out what a relationship based on true and complete equality is will be a challenge. But hopefully by the time I'm dealing with those issues feminists will have made great progress in all of those areas.
Julie ZeilingerAlmost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment of women, moving women into the workplace; our feelings about our role in the world. All of that comes in a very direct way out of World War II.
Rick AtkinsonI'm ambivalent about the Orange Prize. I was really proud to be shortlisted alongside the other writers, whom I admire. That said, I don't know if it's best way of addressing gender inequality problems.
Lauren GroffUnfortunately I'm still straight. But who knows, life is complicated and maybe I'll wake up gay tomorrow! Here's hoping. And congratulations to everyone who lives in a place where they can marry the person they love, regardless of gender!
MobyGender equality and women's empowerment have been a top priority for me from day one as Secretary-General. And I am committed to making sure that the U.N. leads by example.
Ban Ki-moonI have no problem with it. I don't look on homosexuality as an aberration. It's just they way they're born, and how could any relationship between two people in a committed relationship be wrong, regardless of gender?
Andrea ThompsonWe have different expectations for different groups of people. We tend to modulate the degree with which we're forgiving or punitive depending on how well we know folks, or how much we consider them peers, or how much social capital we've invested in them. That has to do with race, class, gender, and socioeconomic status. We have a tendency to bend over backwards to forgive folks we think of as part of "the us." The question of who we define as "the us" is a lot of what constitutes how we punish who we punish.
Chris HayesI was raised in a musical family - 5 girls and 1 boy - so all of us girls don't do gender. We were all made to believe that we could do anything we wanted and so we did. One of my early bands was with my sisters. I didn't really come across a lot of problems because I just didn't see it. I took myself seriously and so everyone else did too - this is my mantra.
Suzi QuatroThe gaming industry is a fairly liberal, hip place, and if you're making games people really don't care what your gender is. At least this has been my experience.
Brenda RomeroIs individual gender suffering relieved at the price of role conformity and the perpetuation of role stereotypes on a social level? In changing sex, does the transsexual encourage a sexist society whose continued existence depends upon the perpetuation of these roles and stereotypes? These and similar questions are seldom raised in transsexual therapy at present.
Janice RaymondWe need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize - women have the right to choose - and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation.
John F. KerryI might think that equality has been achieved, there is no power relation going on in terms of class, race, or gender, I might just want to drink my latte and buy pretty shoes and write books about girls who marry, die, or go insane, then go get my nails done.
Lidia YuknavitchWe have extraordinary women running for us right across Canada, and I look forward to showing that women are needed in positions of power. And I certainly hope that, after people see how effective a cabinet with a gender parity in it is, we're going to draw even more women into politics in subsequent elections.
Justin TrudeauWe all have to acknowledge the life and the path we were born into. And the things that define us, they're often somewhat narrow: our class, our race, our gender, where we grew up, what geography we were exposed to. The curiosity and wonderment of, "What it's like on your path?" - that's when you go into high alert.
Debra GranikI think were struggling with trying to redefine various positions at this point in history. To allow freedom for women, freedom for men, freedom from those sharply defined gender roles.
Fred WardAnd finally, there is another danger: the emergence of nonideological but very aggressive 'isms,' which are really quite new. Let me at least name them: We all care about human rights, but I am afraid of 'human rightism.' We all want to have a healthy environment, but I see the danger in environmentalism. To put it politically correctly, I admire the second gender, but I fear feminism. We all are enriched by other cultures, but not by multiculturalism. I am aware of the importance of voluntary associations, but I fear NGOism.
Vaclav KlausThe first question we usually ask new parents is : โIs it a boy or a girl ?โ. There is a great answer to that one going around : โWe donโt know ; it hasnโt told us yet.โ Personally, I think no question containing โeither/orโ deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender.
Kate Bornstein