Elfriede Jelinek Quotes

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

I can't imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

In fact, it was the women in our house who were in the saddle. If men are the gods, women are not only the presidents but all the ministers of the government.

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

Man is the organizer of life, woman is his organ for carrying out plans.

Men regarded women as a servant class in the community, and that women were going to remain in the servant class until they lifted themselves out of it.

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.

You—the outside world—will be told that it is our “culture” and “religion” to do X, Y, and Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman.

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.

Being a sex symbol had its advantages. You got to meet a lot of interesting people, and men especially. It was a man's world in those days, and I had a lot of luck with men.

Most times, women are seen through the male gaze, so they are often shown as housewives, girlfriends, or objects of desire.

I don't think women are better than men, I think men are a lot worse than women.

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

I'll do shoes for the lady who lunches, but it would be, like, a really nasty lunch, talking about men. But where I draw the line, what I absolutely won't do, is the lady who plays bridge in the afternoon!

It's difficult for me to trust a woman. Men are attracted to beautiful women. Women are attracted to men who offer security - financial security. And if you have money and you're famous, women find that sexy.

Women may fall when there's no strength in men.

Most women seem to be required to pit themselves against men in dramatic situations, and the men got to pit themselves against ideas or God.

Just as the slave master required the slaves to imitate the image he had of them, so women, who live in a relatively powerless position, politically and economically, feel obliged by a kind of implicit force to live up to culture's image of what is female.

Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it.

Male privilege and entitlement are dying a very painful death; no one gives up power without a struggle.

I think I've always had a certain amount of skepticism of this whole 'shut up and smile' theory. I haven't ever swallowed that pill so easily, although I tried.

Black men don't like to be called 'boys,' but women accept being called 'girls.'

Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.

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

Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.