Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can't hope to attain through hard work and emulation.
Martha NussbaumRead
Disgust for the female body is always tinged with anxiety, since the body symbolizes mortality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that disdain for women's bodies is rooted in a deeper fear of mortality and the human condition.
Martha Nussbaum's quote highlights the complex relationship society has with the female body, indicating that disgust or negative feelings towards it often stem from an underlying anxiety about death and the transient nature of life. The female body, as a symbol of life and reproduction, paradoxically evokes discomfort because it reminds individuals of their mortality and the inevitability of aging and loss.
Themes
BodyMortalityDisgustAnxietyFemale
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about body positivity and societal standards during a women's rights seminar.
More from Martha Nussbaum
All quotes βThis is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.
Martha NussbaumRead
Often, we feel helpless in lots of situations in our lives. The way anger gets a grip on us is it seems to be a way to extricate ourselves from helplessness.
Martha NussbaumRead
Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger.
Martha NussbaumRead
I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you've got a meeting and your child's acting in a school play. You can't do both things. And it's not simply that you can't do both, but whatever you do, you're going to be neglecting something that's really important.
Martha NussbaumRead
Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
Martha NussbaumRead
Similar quotes
In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture. The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.
Dianne FeinsteinRead
Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have.
John CalvinRead
Only death reveals what a nothing the body of man is.
JuvenalRead
Whenever you see a board up with "Trespassers will be prosecuted," trespass at once.
Virginia WoolfRead
The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own traveling brotherhood.
Freya StarkRead
People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to Him.
Francis ChanRead