Caitlin Moran Quotes

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.

As a woman, this is one of these areas where you have to walk a fine line: the classic, 'Are you soft and squishy, and you hug everybody, and you're a cheerleader?' versus, 'Are you the hard-nosed you-know-what female dog?'

A lot of times, I get asked, 'Do you feel you have a responsibility to young girls to be a role model?' I don't see that happening as much to guys. I feel like, just because I'm a girl, I'm supposed to take more responsibility? Is that how it works?

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.

Just because I'm a woman does not mean I have to deal with everything to do with food.

Most of us believe that women can do what men do. The challenge is to convince employers, legislators, mothers, that men can do what women do.

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.

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.

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.

I think our whole family just never limited ourselves to what anybody expected of us based on our gender. I never grew up that way.

I never used gender as my crutch. Many women don't use gender as a crutch.

Christ, if he had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer

When a woman acts as though she’s capable of everything, she gets stuck doing everything.

[On being criticized for her serious expression:] I simply ache from smiling. Why are women expected to beam all the time? It's unfair. If a man looks solemn, it's automatically assumed he's a serious person, not a miserable one.

Sexism - you can't be sexy and intelligent. It's not allowed.

There is no evidence that suggests women are naturally better at caring for children... with the fact of child-bearing out of the centre of attention, there is even more reason for treating girls first as human beings, then as women.

After all, a girl is... well, a girl. It's nice to be told you're successful at it.

In our steady insistence on proclaiming sex-distinction we have grown to consider most human attributes as masculine attributes, for the simple reason that they were allowed to men and forbidden to women.

Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?

Every woman deals with sexism most every day of their lives. Growing up, it's just in your day-to-day. There are all these preconceived notions of what it means to be a woman or a girl, and straying from those ideas of femininity is sort of shocking to people. I felt angered by that as a kid. I felt like that was unjust. Like that was not right.

Who has ever attempted to draw a line of separation between the duties of men and women, as moral beings, without committing the grossest inconsistencies on the one hand, or running into the most arrant absurdities on the other?

Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading.

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

I grew up in a home where I was literally told from a young age, 'No daughter of mine will ever wash a man's socks,' and I am pleased to say I never have. It was made clear that whatever I wanted to do I should aspire to, regardless of my gender.