Kathryn Minshew Quotes

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

People put stock in someone being in a 'girl group,' but we don't say that a band is a 'man group.'

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.

People think anything done from a woman's perspective is only going to appeal to women.

Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?

As long as male behavior is taken to be the norm, there can be no serious questioning of male traits and behavior. A norm is by definition a standard for judging; it is not itself subject to judgment.

Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.

We live in a patriarchal culture. It's okay for women to be objectified but not for men.

Too often, women are portrayed in two ways: as prizes to be won by men or as damsels in distress.

I'd like to get to the point where I can be just as mediocre as a man.

Because I'm a woman writing about women who do bad things, that's somehow very 'other.' When men write that, it's called a novel. It's just a book.

Our discomfort with female leadership runs deep. We call little girls bossy. We never really call little boys bossy, because a boy is expected to lead, so it doesn't surprise or offend.

Men never get free from morality, only women.

If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, it's seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive. Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation: either you're not talking as you should as a woman or as boss.

I've always been sure of my vision, but I've been in meetings where men have been talking about me like I'm not there... I've been told I should be a certain way, and I wondered if that would have been the case if I was a man.

Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.

It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.

I would gladly admit women are superior to men if only they would stop trying to be the same as us.

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

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

Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are.

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.

I adopted the assumption of many of my generation that women were intellectually inferior to men, that we were not capable of governing, leading, managing anything but our homes and our children.

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

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