Elayne Boosler Quotes

Where a man is forceful, a woman is shrill.

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

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

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.

And then also I think it's harder for women because comedy is so opposite of being ladylike.

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.

Once, power was considered a masculine attribute. In fact, power has no sex.

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

I think I am really irreverent and I pretty much just talk to and about men the way men talk to and about women.

I do remember when I first went into politics, one of my competitors asked me, 'Well, Jenny Shipley, who's looking after your children?' I don't think many of my male colleagues have faced a similar question.

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.

You come across words all the time that are everyday sexism. I was described as 'competently bossy' and 'bossily competent' by a male journalist, and I thought, 'Gosh, 'bossy' is never used of a man.'

According to New York publishers, Bill Clinton will get more money for his book than Hillary Clinton got for hers. Well, duh. At least his book has some sex in it.

If a man belittles a woman, it could become a lawsuit. If women belittle men, it's a Hallmark card.

We are still uneasy with women and power…For a man to be ruthless, he has to be like Joe McCarthy. For a woman, she just has to put somebody on hold.

I'll never forget when I was running, when I was knocking on doors for my first office as I served as a Cleveland city councilwoman and to have older men say to me, 'Can you do this and be a wife and a mother?' Excuse me? Women make the world go round. We multitask... But to have that kind of condescending question asked of me in modern times.

The only moment I become aware of being the only woman in a meeting is when actresses are being discussed. If someone's critical of how a woman looks, they turn to me and apologize.

I used to be very interested in the history of women's rights in this country and in other countries. I tried to learn as much as I could about it, and more than anything, I would be called gay. It was phenomenal. But if a boy has something to say, he is appreciated; he's even popular. If a girl says something, it's instantly a threat.

Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?

It can be frustrating when you're put in a category with others. Women do get lumped together in this reductive grouping, and you think, 'Gosh, that rarely happens with the boys.' I'm sure people don't say to Eddie Redmayne, 'How do you feel about Andrew Garfield?'

I have played a lot of roles in my career where I'm the sexual interest. I'm always having to fight that.

Female-driven shows have to be every single thing and are constantly criticized in a way that male-driven shows are not.

As actors, we don't shy away from saying, 'I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to meet girls.' Directors cannot say the same thing.

The way my body is viewed in the world is different than a male body. People are going to write about the performance, but they're probably also going to be writing about what I was wearing or my hair, which just doesn't happen to men.

In general, the threshold for a woman becoming worried at how she's coming off in terms of asserting her power, that threshold is continually lower than it is for men.