Women are afraid in a world in which almost half the population bears the guise of the predator, in which no factor - age, dress, or color - distinguishes a man who will harm a woman from one who will not.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the fear women experience due to the pervasive threat of male violence, regardless of external factors.
Marilyn French's quote speaks to the deep-seated fear that women live with in a society where a significant portion of men may pose a threat to their safety. This fear is exacerbated by the inability to distinguish between benign and harmful individuals based on superficial characteristics such as age or appearance, which contributes to a pervasive sense of vulnerability among women.
In practice
In a discussion about gender violence, this quote can emphasize women's experiences.
S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter.
Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.
To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.
When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?
'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.
It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.
Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.
All I wanted to do was help kids not feel alone, and stop kids from committing suicide.
What I do on court is great, but what really matters is what happens off court, the people who you affect.
Marriage is like a temple resting on two pillars. If they come too close to each other the temple will collapse.
We tried so hard. We were always trying to help each other. But not because we were helpless. He needed to get things for me, just as I needed to get things for him. It gave us purpose. Sometimes I would ask him for something that I did not even want, just to let him get it for me. We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I could turn up the heat.
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