Katha Pollitt Quotes

The oppression of women is based on custom and tradition—not religion.

We live in a thinly veiled misogynistic society.

I grew up in a time when many people believed that men and women should not always be treated equally.

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

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

I suspect there are people in all walks of life who need to be dragged into the 21st century in terms of attitudes towards women.

Women's liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

When women criticized men, I called it 'insight'... When men criticized women, I called it 'sexism' and 'backlash.'

While I am reluctant to cite sexism as a political issue, sexism certainly can exist.

Eventually I figured out there was something systematic in the way women are treated.

It's quite clear to me I'm not a sexist and I'm not a misogynist.

I don't understand why or how anyone ever pulled off the whole idea of 'women are inferior.'

Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.

Women have to stand up to tremendous discriminatory practices, whether inherited traditions, whether imposed norms, male perceptions of power and control. The women always have to go through that and cannot take any privilege for granted.

It is better to be a male for one day than a female for ten

Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.

Sexism is real.

I don't fear being judged as a misogynist.

Misogyny is not something that you want to be a part of.

Nobody that I know would ever say that I'm sexist.

I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters.

You can't be a person and a lady. If you're a person, you can open the damned door yourself.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Women shouldn't wrinkle their pretty little foreheads with politics." Now does that mean he was a sexist, or was he just expressing what most males, and maybe most females, felt at that time? Or are both true?

The notion that somehow women are wildly different infuriates me.

What works for a man, still does not work for a woman - both in terms of how they see themselves and how we see them.