Warren Farrell Quotes

Generally speaking, historically in this country, the care of a child has been thought of as female business.

Even now, after whatever gains feminism has made in involving fathers in the rearing of their children, I still think virtually all of us spend the most formative years of our lives very much in the presence of women.

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.

The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother.

Parenting, as an unpaid occupation outside the world of public power, entails lower status, less power, and less control of resources than paid work.

I just think that unless you have that cohesiveness in the family unit, the male character tends to become very dominant, repressive and insensitive. So much of this comes also from a lack of education.

Working mothers do an hour more per day than working fathers do and working mothers do on average an hour more per day with the kids than working fathers do.

I have friends who have daughters and there's times I think I'm glad I have boys instead of girls.

Women may give lip service to wanting husbands who take on an equal role in raising children, but many will pull rank when an important decision, like how to discipline or what baby sitter to hire, has to be made.

My mother was a sociologist and an intellectual, and my father was an industrialist with a business in copper and aluminum wire. He was very strict and he wanted me to work in the family business - for him, the worst thing was having a daughter who worked in fashion.

And whereas women had to fight to find their way into the workforce, men are now fighting to reclaim their place in the family structure.

Women and men grow up with both sexes. Our mothers and fathers mean a lot to us, so it's just a question of finding a balance between their influences. I've found mine. And it tends to be more on the male side. I mean male side the way we understand it in the West.

I grew up around a lot of feminine energy.

You cannot escape the fact that women mould your first five years, whether you like it or not. And I can't say I do like it very much.

Many men today can cook, or at least order takeout, and know where and how to hire domestic help, perhaps with refreshing clarity and less anxiety than ever-conflicted mothers.

I'm one of nine sisters. My parents were dairy farmers in Wisconsin. My father didn't believe in girls doing farm work. Girls did housework, and he hired young men to do farm work. I would have preferred to be outside.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.

Men are mostly raised by women. Most men have not seen an authoritative woman since they were 8. They associate women in authority with childhood.

It is obvious that the role of the father as the central authority in the family has been considerably challenged in Western societies. Parental responsibilities, and I knowingly use the term responsibility instead of the term authority still used in the French Civil code, are nowadays shared equally between both parents.

Most people assume that women are responsible for households and child care. Most couples operate that way - not all. That fundamental assumption holds women back.

We will never achieve equality in the workplace until we have more equality in the home. Our plans for an extra four weeks of parental leave specifically for fathers will help tackle the assumption that parenting is one of the 'girl jobs'.

We urgently need to address the assumption bound up in our employment laws and custody arrangements that women are the 'natural child carers' and men don't really want much to do with their children.

I grew up in an era where Dad worked, Mum looked after the family, and if I think of the qualities she brought to that - nurture and support are so valuable.

From a very young age, parents are pushing their boys to achieve in a way they don't always do for girls.