34 Quotes On Gender Roles

In today's rapidly evolving society, the dialogue surrounding gender roles is more dynamic than ever. Challenging traditional boundaries and expectations, many voices have emerged, advocating for a more equitable and inclusive perspective on gender. In this spirit, we've compiled a carefully selected collection of the top 34 quotes on gender roles. These quotes, drawn from diverse sources, offer profound insights and reflections that can inspire, provoke thought, and spark meaningful conversations. Whether you're looking to challenge your own preconceptions or find words that resonate with your experiences, this collection is sure to offer something impactful. So, take a moment to explore these powerful statements and join us in contemplating the evolving narrative of gender roles in our world today.

1. “What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked. "A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

2. “Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.” - Oscar Wilde

3. “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Éorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

4. “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.” - Oscar Wilde

5. “The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody's wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.” - Terry Pratchett

6. “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.” - Katharine Hepburn

7. “Valerie stood with the other women, watching the men go. She couldn't help bristling at this division of the sexes. Her fingers itched to hold a weapon, too, to do something, to kill something with her anger.” - Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

8. “A wife should always be few feet behind her husband. If he is an MA you should be a BA.If he is 5'4'tall you shouldn't be more than 5'3'tall. If he is earning five hundred rupees you should never earn more than four hundred and ninety nine rupees.That's the only rule to follow if you want a happy marriage...No partnership can ever be equal.It will always be unequal, but take care it is unequal in favor of the husband. If the scales tilt in your favor, God help you, both of you.” - Shashi Deshpande

9. “The only feeling that a closer intimacy has created in him for his wife is that of indulgent contempt. As there is no equality between man and woman, so there can be no respect. She is a different being. He must either look up to her as superior to himself, or down upon her as inferior. When a man does the former he is more or less in love, and love to John Ingerfield is an unknown emotion. Her beauty, her charm, her social tact--even while he makes use of them for his own purposes, he despises as the weapons of a weak nature.” - Jerome K. Jerome

10. “A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.” - Charles Dickens

11. “I don’t think male gamers are more or less sexist than non-gamers. Sexism is unfortunately still a large problem in our culture overall. It is not unique to gaming. Have a pretty girl walk by a construction site in a mini-skirt and you’ll see that. For anyone to imply that male gamers are somehow inherently more sexist than the rest of society smacks of insincerity or naiveté.” - Julie Ann Dawson

12. “And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.” - Jennifer Donnelly

13. “I'm going to go out on a limb here. I've thought a lot about this one, as a feminist, and as an author. How should traditional roles be portrayed? In fantasy literature there is a school of thought that holds that women must be treated precisely like men. Only the traditional male sphere of power and means of wielding power count. If a woman is shown in a traditionally female role, then she must be being shown as inferior. After a lot of thought, and some real-life stabs at those traditional roles, I've come to firmly disagree with this idea. For an author to show that only traditional male power and place matter is to discount and belittle the hard and complex lives of our peers and our ancestresses.” - Sarah Zettel

14. “Eyebeam: What do you mean, I have “male answer syndrome”?Sally: It’s the compulsion to provide an answer to any question, even if it means resorting to pure speculation.Eyebeam: I knew that…Sally: It’s a very widespread phenomenon.Beth: I wonder what causes it?Eyebeam: Cause? Well, society has chosen male role models who always exhibit total control… If a male says “I don’t know”, he’s admitting to conversational helplessness and failing to live up to that societal standard…Sally: Pretty pitiful, huh?Eyebeam: Damn!Beth: …And I always thought they learned it all in “shop”.” - Sam Hurt

15. “We raise our children, especially girls, to ignore their spontaneious reactions-we teach them not to rock the societal boat...By the time she is thirty, the valient little girl's "Ick!"-her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's actions are really mean, may have been exciese from her behavior, and perhaps from her very mind.” - Martha Stout

16. “As for the boys..."vulnerable fathers turn to time-honored defensive responses to maintain the function that father knows best' Parents, especially fathers, teach their sons to obey authority no matter what.” - Martha Stout

17. “Playing roles in any relationship is false and will inevitably lead to the relationship's collapse. Noone can be any one thing all the time.” - Portia De Rossi

18. “the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.” - bell hooks

19. “You ride as a man, fight as a man, and you think as a man-""I think as a human being," she retorted hotly. "Men don't think any differently from women- they just make more noise about being able to.” - Tamora Pierce

20. “L’editore mandò cento copie del volume, per tutto compenso dell’opera: il valore non superava quello dell’olio e del vino rubati in cantina; e il grosso pacco piombò in casa come un bolide sconquassatore. La madre ne fu atterrita, la sera gli girò attorno con la diffidenza spaventata di un cane che vede un animale sconosciuto: per fortuna Cosima ricordò che un suo cugino in terzo grado aveva una bottega di barbiere e spacciava giornali e riviste. Era un intellettuale anche lui, a modo suo, perché mandava la corrispondenza locale al Giornale del capoluogo: e la proposta di Cosima, di spacciare qualche copia del romanzo fu da lui accolta con disinteresse completo. Ma per la scrittrice fu un disastro morale completo: non solo le zie inacidite, e i benpensanti del paese, e le donne che non sapevano leggere ma considerano i romanzi come libri proibiti, tutti si rivoltarono contro la fanciulla: fu un rogo di malignità, di supposizioni scandalose, di profezie libertine: la voce del Battista che, dalla prigione opaca della sua selvaggia castità urlava contro Erodiade era meno inesorabile. Lo stesso Andrea era scontento: non così aveva sognato la gloria della sorella: della sorella che si vedeva minacciata dal pericolo di non trovare marito.” - Grazia Deledda

21. “One of the chief paradoxes of our culture [is] that the welfare of its children, its _future_, is placed almost exclusively in the hands of people of low status, a class it holds in contempt.” - Joan Smith

22. “We could call you an ambisexual. A duosexual. A—”“Do I really have to find a word for it?” Kyle interrupts. “Can’t it just be what it is?”“Of course,” I say, even though in the bigger world I’m not so sure. The world loves stupid labels. I wish we got to choose our own.We pause for a moment. I wonder if that’s all—if he just needed to say the truth and have it heard. But then Kyle looks at me with unsure eyes and says, “You see, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.”“Nobody does,” I assure him.” - David Levithan

23. “Nul n'est plus arrogant à l'égard des femmes, agressif ou dédaigneux, qu'un homme inquiet de sa virilité.” - Simone de Beauvoir

24. “La fécondité absurde de la femme l'empêchait de participer activement à l'accroissement de ces ressources tandis qu'elle créait indéfiniment de nouveaux besoins.” - Simone de Beauvoir

25. “Dès l'origine de l'humanité, leur privilège biologique a permis aux mâles de s'affirmer seuls comme sujets souverains; ils n'ont jamais abdiqué ce privilège (...) Condamnée à jouer le rôle de l'Autre, la femme était aussi condamnée à ne posséder qu'une puissance précaire: esclave ou idole ce n'est jamais elle qui a choisi son lot.” - Simone de Beauvoir

26. “Toute éducation des femmes doit être relative aux hommes (...) La femme est fait pour céder à l'homme et pour supporter ses injustices.” - Rousseau

27. “Mais en fait les voix féminines se taisent là où commence l'action concrète; elles ont pu susciter des guerres, non suggérer la tactique d'une bataille; elles n'ont guère orienté la politique que dans la mesure où la politique se réduisait à l'intrigue: les vraies commandes du monde n'ont jamais été aux mains des femmes; elles n'ont pas agi sur les techniques ni sur l'économie, elles n'ont pas fait ni défait des États, elles n'ont pas découvert des mondes. C'est par elles que certains événements ont été déclenchés: mais elles ont été prétextes beaucoup plus qu'agents.” - Simone de Beauvoir

28. “Le privilège économique détenu par les hommes, leur valeur sociale, le prestige du mariage, l'utilité d'un appui masculin, tout engage les femmes à vouloir ardenment plaire aux hommes. Elles sont encore dans l'ensemble en situation de vassalité. Il s'ensuit que la femme se connaît et se choisit non en tant qu'elle existe pour soi mais telle que l'homme la définit.” - Simone de Beauvoir

29. “Aucun destin biologique, psychique, économique ne définit la figure que revêt au sein de la societé la femelle humain; c'est l'ensemble de la civilisation qui élabore ce produit intermédiaire entre le mâle et le castrat qu'on qualifie de féminin.” - Simone de Beauvoir

30. “Si, bien avant la puberté, et parfois même dès sa toute petite enfance, elle nous apparaît déjà comme sexuellement specifiée, ce n'est pas que de mystérieux instincts immédiatement la vouent à la passivité, à la coquetterie, à la maternité, c'est que lintervention d'autrui dans la vie de l'enfant et presque originelle et que dès ses premières années sa vocation lui est impérieusement insufflée.” - Simone de Beauvoir

31. “Tous les enfants essaient de compenser la séparation du sevrage par des conduites de séduction et de parade; on oblige le garçon à dépasser ce stade, on le délivre de son narcissisme en le fixant sur son pénis; tandis que la fillette est confirmée dans cette tendance à se faire objet qui est commune à tous les enfants.” - Simone de Beauvoir

32. “Chorus of old men: If we give them the least hold over us, 'tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights like Artemisia; nay if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop. Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men.” - Aristophanes

33. “But somehow things took a sinister turn, and the division of labor came to be understood as the demarcation of a social hierarchy. Women kept busy with numerous domestic responsibilities while their male counterparts' sole duty was tending to the flocks. Men had time to think critically, form political infrastructures, and ultimately, network with other men. Meanwhile, women were kept too busy to notice that somewhere along the line, they had become inferior. This is approximately when shit hit the fan.” - Julie Zeilinger

34. “It is the socially determined norms and traditions of gender roles, which must be challenged, and challenged with vigor. In nearly all countries, including America, the truth is that women have a low social status, and are considered inferior.” - Bryant McGill