I define power as 'control over one's life.' A balanced life is far superior to the male definition of power: earning money someone else spends while he dies sooner.
We always look at the 'Fortune 500,' and we say, men in power, but we don't look at the glass cellar as opposed to the glass ceiling and say, men also are the homeless, men are also the ones that are the garbage collectors. Men are also the ones dying in construction sites that aren't properly supervised for safety hazards.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the overlooked struggles of men in society, emphasizing that power and success are often viewed through a narrow lens.
Warren Farrell's quote critiques the societal focus on the achievements of men in high positions, as represented by the 'Fortune 500' list, while ignoring the challenges faced by men in less glamorous, often dangerous or undervalued roles. By introducing the concept of the 'glass cellar' in contrast to the 'glass ceiling', he invites us to recognize that not all men enjoy privilege, and many face hardships that remain invisible in the broader conversation about gender and power.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on gender equality at a community meeting.
More from Warren Farrell
All quotes →Men rarely worry about using or being used because all relationships work that way. A man perceives himself as owning and being owned by a woman. 'Use' is a dirty word only when there's an imbalance in the relationship.
So long as you create laws that define women as victims, as creatures that demand protection, that need bodyguards, you are going to perpetuate the very worst of our sexist past.
Is there discrimination against women? Yes. There's no denying that the old boys' network is alive and well. But there's also discrimination against men.
The key to wealth is not what we earn. It is in what is spent on us.
Throughout my life I have always been amazed that people couldn't listen to other people, that they couldn't hear their best intent, that there seemed to be an enormous need to demonize.
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In the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty...the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent humanity, the mark of cruelty.
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I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.