Toni Morrison Quotes

Sexism has always been a political stance mediating social domination, enabling white men and black men to share a common sensibility about sex roles and the importance of male domination.

I was watching something the other day which started out with five guys walking towards you and one woman, and there you go-it's still being dominated by the male society.

The enemy of feminism isn’t men. It’s patriarchy, and patriarchy is not men. It is a system, and women can support the system of patriarchy just as men can support the fight for gender equality.

I don't think that women being seen as inferior is a prejudice based on male hatred of women. When you look at history, it's a prejudice based on simple fact.

Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it.

Men don't oppress women any more than women oppress men.

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

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

If a guy is intimidated by a woman in leadership, he has real problems with his own concepts of masculinity. That's a harsh statement, but I believe it to be true.

Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don't talk about, but how could it not affect the planet radically when it's the superstructure of human society.

Do I let a group of power-mongering men with short penises tell me what to do?

Society has always been male; political power has always been in the hands of men.

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.

[Women’s subjugation to men] is one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.

Misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. Sexism wears a lab coat, misogyny goes on witch hunts.... Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.

I think what's happening in the world - there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded beast, and the patriarchy is wounded.

Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

I want a Zero Tolerance policy on All The Patriarchal Bullshit.

The same men who are blind and deaf to feminism are acutely sensitive to what threatens their dominance and privilege.

Sexism has never rendered women powerless. It has either suppressed their strength or exploited it.

What feminism calls patriarchy is simply civilization , an abstract system designed by men but augmented and now co-owned by women.

... so long as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when shedares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction.

We live in a thinly veiled misogynistic society.

Women is fine once you got em pinned down, boss, but when they ain't pinned down they're hell.