Charles M. Blow Quotes

What I do know is that traditional gender roles are very real and flipping the norm is difficult for even the strongest, funniest, smartest men.

A man who reads effeminate may well be consistently heterosexual, and another one might be gay. We can't read sexuality off of gender.

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

There aren't a whole lot of people in culture that are unapologetically masculine.

Masculine ideals have become very confused in the modern world.

I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male - or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be. Just watch a beer commercial and you'll see what I mean.

No, feminism isn't 'over.' We need it not only to challenge injustice but because the whole gender expectations thing is bad for men, too.

I have never felt oppressed by women or that feminism is a problem. I do think boys find it hard to like things seen as feminine. I want my son not to feel self-conscious he likes ballet and my daughter to carry on playing Han Solo; that's all.

We're living at a time when people are questioning what it means to be male in modern society, and I'm finding it very helpful to explore it through these roles.

Are you woman enough to be my man?

I'm trying to illuminate how perilously narrow we draw the concepts of masculinity and sexuality in our male culture.

I think a man is a man, and a man has a hairy chest, so let that be!

I don't think men were meant to be interviewed.

I hate men who are in touch with their feminine side.

If you're a man, you don't have to worry about your manliness.

When I'm talking to groups that are all men, we talk about how the masculine role limits them. They often want to talk about how they missed having real fathers, real loving, present fathers, because of the way that they tried to fit the picture of masculinity.

I would never sign on to a project that was male-bashing, because first and foremost I'm a man... what guy would sign on for that?

I think we won't be able to understand the operations of trans-phobia, homophobia, if we don't understand how certain kinds of links are forged between gender and sexuality in the minds of those who want masculinity to be absolutely separate from femininity and heterosexuality to be absolutely separate from homosexuality.

Once upon a time, growing up male gave little boys a sense of certainty about the natural order of things. We had short hair, wore pants, and played baseball. Girls had long hair, wore skirts, and, no matter how hard they tried, always threw a baseball just like a girl.

I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.

I'm just glad that the whole John Wayne persona of a man is sort of old school now, because I'd never be able to do that. If that was the going rate today, I wouldn't be working.

It would have been convenient to be gay. Just because of the grooming, the narcissism, stuff like that. But I have this kind of roaring heterosexuality. Traditional, uncomplicated heterosexuality, an almost cliched Robin Askwith thing.

Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.

Men need to live and breathe women.

The word 'excess' has no meaning for a male.