Toni Duggan Quotes

When gender comes down upon us, male or female, it comes as a restriction.

Whenever anything went wrong at home, because I was the only boy, I would get blamed for it straight away. Girls stick together.

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.

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.

I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose.

Little girls as children, I think, are expected to behave better. If a boy's naughty at school, he's a little bit cheeky and mischievous. If a girl's naughty, she's trouble.

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.

Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture, so it's important to acknowledge that. 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.

When I was born, some of our relatives came to our house and told my mother, 'Don't worry, next time you will have a son.'

Especially with girls, people always want to put them in little brackets.

Books written by boys are given very different treatment to those written by girls: they're even given very different covers. People also expect, in this YA-booming world, girls to be less experimental than boys: girls are achieving a lot of success, but they're confined.

We determine whether a book is for boys or girls long before the reader gets a chance to decide: we package them with soldiers and ballet slippers on their covers, war machines and glittering gowns.

I don't really find girls to be any more dramatic or delicate than boys; I've known plenty of little boys who've had miserable breakdowns over things... in fact, I was one of them!

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

What I do know is that traditional gender roles are very real and flipping the norm is difficult for even the strongest, funniest, smartest men.

I'm terrified of having a little girl. Girls are more evil than boys.

As a female, you are often being asked by directors to be warmer, softer, flirt more, smile more etc... None of those things are bad, and obviously we are capable of a variety of human behavior, but it gets really old having to play into somebody's stereotype or ideal.

A woman who places a high priority on performance and excellence is seen as imperial. A man is seen as demanding and tough.

No, feminism isn't 'over.' We need it not only to challenge injustice but because the whole gender expectations thing is bad for men, too.

Clearly, we are not programmed at birth to behave a certain way based on our gender. Instead, we are trained throughout our lives to conform to our gender norms.

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.

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.

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 guess people have this image of women being more compassionate, being the mother, being caring, but I don't know if that's true. I think it's an image we've all carried over the years. I never want to attribute certain qualities to 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.