Rich cultures, patriarchal cultures, value thin women, like ours; poor ones value fat women. But all patriarchal cultures value weak women. So for women to become physically strong is very profound.
Gloria SteinemRead
I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses envy towards male traits related to confidence and assertiveness in professional settings.
In this quote, Lena Dunham reflects on her feelings of envy towards traditional male characteristics, particularly in how men engage with their professional ambitions without resorting to people-pleasing behaviors. She acknowledges her struggle with the pressures of making others comfortable at the expense of her own aspirations, highlighting the societal expectations placed on women and contrasting them with the perceived freedom enjoyed by men in similar situations.
Themes
EnvyGenderProfessionalismAssertivenessPeople-Pleasing
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on gender dynamics in the workplace, this quote can emphasize the challenges women face.
Similar quotes
If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
Gloria SteinemRead
Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.
Coco ChanelRead
Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!
Erica JongRead
While men represent powerful activity as assertion and aggression, women in contrast portray acts of nurturance as acts of strength.
Carol GilliganRead
It is often falsely assumed, even by feminists, that sexuality is the enemy of the female who really wants to develop these aspects of her personality, and this is perhaps the most misleading aspect of movements like the National Organization of Women. It was not the insistence upon her sex that weakened the American woman student's desire to make something of her education, but the insistence upon a passive sexual role
Germaine GreerRead