P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

When we get married or interviewed for a job or play professional sports or run for president of the United States, we encounter a whole set of standards and expectations. We can be shamed for an outfit that's too slutty, too dowdy, too pricey--take your pick. That's the burden women carry into the fitting room.

It takes a lot of guts to put on a face full of makeup, being a male in the world where a lot of people still think that cosmetics are only for women.

It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.

When a woman behaves like a man why doesn't she behave like a nice man?

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

People have preconceptions about women of a certain age.

In my experience, men are not necessarily less sensitive or compassionate than women are, and women are not necessarily any less aggressive or competitive than men are - as a matter of fact, often they are more so!

You would never say to a man, 'do you like playing strong men?' You just wouldn't say that.

Why don't men like to stop and ask directions? This question, which I first addressed in my 1990 book 'You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation', garnered perhaps the most attention of any issue or insight in that book.

I was raised to think women had babies, stayed at home, and men worked. By the time I got ready to do it, I thought I had all the answers. Only somebody had changed the questions.

While the requirements of a good leader and a good man are similar, the requirements of a good leader and a good woman are mutually exclusive. A good leader must be tough, but a good woman must not be. A good woman must be self-deprecating, but a good leader must not be.

You should never be put into a mold based on your gender.

There are certain expectations placed on writers if other people have put a value on their gender. I'm aware of the hundreds of tiny differences that happen when people are seeing your gender before they see something else.

People try to make women a very specific thing so that we like them.

I had always been pegged for being feminine. People would always say, 'Ooh, that's a pretty little girl.' They would talk about my eyelashes or that I was sensitive or that I was crying all the time. I didn't want to play in the dirt outside with the boys.

I am very much aware that I am considered a 'strong woman.' And I am also aware that that is only because I had a child outside wedlock.

My mother sang. But back in the day, it was looked down upon if the lady of the house wanted to sing in public. So, she couldn't pursue her musical aspirations.

I find when I'm perceived as male in society, there is an enormous amount of pressure, but it comes with respect, so it's a balance.

I am far more pragmatic than the stereotype of the sex permits.

Shrillness is not the inevitable curse of the fairer sex.

For women, even if she's nerdy enough to be Steve Jobs, she's undateable.

When I was a young girl I had to deal with people calling me weird and strange because I spent so much time around boys playing football.

They always said to me that I needed to be more feminine. I think it's so wrong. Being boisterous doesn't mean you are not feminine.

Our culture tends to denigrate things that are associated with women. It's OK for women to wear trousers, for example, but not OK for men to wear skirts.

Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.