Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Quotes

Using the word 'bossy' for girls can be quite harmful. What is that saying - that being focused, being assertive, being the boss has a negative attribute? And I have heard that term associated more with women than with men. 'He's so bossy' - you don't hear that. It's a very subtle thing.

Women in leadership cannot cry without raising a storm of commentary.

I was supposed to be authoritative, but at the same time had to be likeable, a quality that is a bonus, not a requirement, for men in the same position.

Where anger can be seen as a relative positive in a man, it is hardly ever perceived as anything other than a negative in a woman.

I prefer to be known as an executive rather than a girl.

Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant.

It is far easier for a woman to lead a blameless life than it is for a man; all she has to do is to avoid sexual intercourse like the plague.

A lot of times, I get asked, 'Do you feel you have a responsibility to young girls to be a role model?' I don't see that happening as much to guys. I feel like, just because I'm a girl, I'm supposed to take more responsibility? Is that how it works?

Constantly there's a credibility issue; you're judged on how you look. If you look good, people assume you aren't credible. It's a battle you'll always fight if you're on TV and a female.

A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

Basically, women have to prove they are strong at all times. And then when they go on the attack, they have to not appear mean because those women often get the label of being catty.

Every congresswoman surely endures the same strains that drive some of her male colleagues to have affairs: lots of travel, families far away, heady work that makes a domestic routine seem distant and boring. But the stakes are much higher for women, because they are still judged by a different standard.

Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else.

For some reason, men in politics seem to have a bunch of charisma, and women drop around their feet. I haven't noticed that so much for me and men.

Men can't bear to see women cry.

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.

I understand I'm supposed to be feminine and dainty, but I'm not. There are two sides to the coin. People are more impressed with things that I do because they almost treat you as if you're handicapped if you're a woman... people can be impressed that I can play a few chords on the guitar.

Growing up in Texas, you were either pretty or smart. Smart didn't get you very far, because there weren't too many job opportunities for women. I wondered why you couldn't be both.

Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'

I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly.

If you're a man and you are confident and you are ambitious and strong, then you are a statesman and a leader. If you are a woman and you have those qualities, well, they have a not-so-flattering term for that.

A man who cooks is very sexy. A woman who cooks is not that sexy. Because it's associated in our mind to the domestic cliche of the woman.

People think you can't be clever if you have breasts.

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.

I think that an actor is more likely to be forgiven in the public's eye than an actress.