Elif Batuman Quotes

While Muslim men describe themselves as insecure in their harems, real or imagined, Westerners describe themselves as self-assured heroes with no fears of women. The tragic dimension so present in Muslim harems - fear of women and male self-doubt - is missing in the Western harem.

It's really hard for a lot of men to have the woman accomplishing more than them.

For the several thousands of years before they became firefighters and physicians, women were sirens, enchantresses, snares. At times it seems as if female powerlessness is male self-preservation in disguise. And for millennia, this has made for a zero-sum game: A woman's intelligence was a man's deception.

From the cradle to the grave she is subject to the power and control of man. Father, guardian, or husband, one conveys her like some piece of merchandise over to the other.

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

I realized early on that I always hated girls who used their femininity to get what they wanted.

If you're in a heterosexual relationship and you're a female, you win.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

Allah has given men control over women.

All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill.

When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.

Partners and mothers allow men to get away with too much.

I had to live through being a woman who thought men always had a one-up... I knew I didn't like it. I thought that's how it was.

Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.

Show me a frigid women and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.

The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality.

It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.

I'm fascinated by how much we, as women, have to subjugate and hide ourselves in order to get on in the world.

Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.

I feel like, in a lot of shows where the woman is in charge, the woman is this ball buster and the guy is sort of weak and spineless. And that's never been my experience in a relationship. I think it's much more interesting that the guy is the boss. And there are stakes.

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

Disguise our bondage as we will, 'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

There is no such thing as a dangerous woman; there are only susceptible men.

Most women are wise to the fact that lots of men love a cat-fight, and thus go out of their way not to give them one.

Strong women only marry weak men.