My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.
Erica JongRead
Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Women have been both idealized and oppressed throughout history, leading to a perception of powerlessness.
Erica Jong's quote highlights a significant contradiction in societal views of women; while they have often been romanticized and elevated to an ideal, this idolization has paradoxically resulted in their oppression and marginalization. Instead of empowering women, this idealization can enforce a narrative that ultimately strips them of agency and reinforces systemic inequalities.
Themes
WomenPowerExploitationIdealizationHistory
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on women's rights and empowerment.
More from Erica Jong
All quotes βI have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
Erica JongRead
No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
Erica JongRead
My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.
Erica JongRead
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Erica JongRead
I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.
Erica JongRead
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Women's lib, Frannie had decided, was nothing more nor less than an outgrowth of the technological society. Women were at the mercy of their bodies. They were smaller. They tended to be weaker. A man couldn't get with child, but a woman could---every four-year-old knows it. And a pregnant woman is a vulnerable human being. Civilization had provided an umbrella of sanity that both sexes could stand beneath.
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The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'
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There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful; boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful.
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