Janine di Giovanni Quotes

If you are a 19-year-old woman, there are very specific things that directors and the people in positions of power in the industry - who tend to be older men - are going to want you to be and do. They are not going to want some chatty, difficult, slightly spoilt girl.

Women with money and women in power are two uncomfortable ideas in our society.

The Catholic men are more upset about women not being able to be priests than are Catholic women.

… male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

One of the major differences between gender discrimination and Racial or Religious Discrimination is that the with the latter the perpetrators fundamentally recognized that it was based on power offered moral challenges. However, men—the perpetrators of discrimination against women have mostly not even considered the moral aspect of it and perceived it as natural.

I find when I'm perceived as male in society, there is an enormous amount of pressure, but it comes with respect, so it's a balance.

There are hierarchies in B-Town regarding many things, not just gender. Men also go through a lot in this industry.

In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.

It's difficult for me to work with women, because I find that direct references are made back to me too fast. Working with men, it gives it a little distance.

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry, you are so afraid of people thinking you are weak.

I think any time you have a workplace that's heavily weighted to men just by the nature of what it is, the same way you can say PR or fashion is heavily occupied by women, there's always going to be a little bit of that sexism.

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.

They say women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.

At the time, 1980, people regarded actresses involved with production with a certain amount of fear, resentment and anger.

A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

Sadly, in any industry and in any work-related environment, females always strive to achieve a certain amount of perfection, whether that be skinny or pretty. It's a constant, in our society.

I don't think that women being seen as inferior is a prejudice based on male hatred of women. When you look at history, it's a prejudice based on simple fact.

For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.

Society says that men need to be bigger and stronger, and they must protect their women and so on.

I don't know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it's more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they're a woman and people don't want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society.

When anything goes, it's women who lose.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Ironically, women who acquire power are more likely to be criticized for it than are the men who have always had it.

When women are in positions of power it's a hard place to be, especially when that position involves bossing men around.