Martina Navratilova Quotes

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.

I'm glad you're doing this story on us and not on the WNBA. We're so much prettier than all the other women in sports.

I've come to the conclusion that beautiful women in the West aren't comfortable finding strength in their femininity. They want to do masculine-oriented things to establish their femininity. It's a contradiction.

Women are blessed with lots and lots of extra ways to win or lose validation. If you're a woman, you'll be judged on your beauty and your wit and how often you smile. You'll be judged on how much hair you have in some places and not in others.

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?'

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.

Give up the tyranny of female charm.

Any woman who wishes to smash into the world of men isn't very feminine.

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

I think the fallacy is to think that Women's Liberation meant that men and women would become interchangeable. That has not happened, and most men and women would not want it to happen.

I don't know any women who don't think about what they look like, and I don't know any men who don't think about what women look like.

There's more pressure on women to be chirpy and perky.

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.

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

People make such a big deal about how people in bands look, especially if you're a girl.

Growing up in Texas, you were either pretty or smart. Smart didn't get you very far, because there weren't too many job opportunities for women. I wondered why you couldn't be both.

I think a woman gets more if she acts feminine.

The Miss America Pageant reinforces a belief that women are merely how they look and how they please.

Women are often expected to be more amiable or more pleasing or more submissive than men generally.

Men are just jealous because they can't wear makeup.

People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.

A lot of people who watch figure skaters want us to look like pretty princesses. I want people to see the athlete, and I want to look like a woman among girls.

Being the ideal of a strong woman means utilizing all the things that God gives you. People are always saying to me, 'You're a strong female, so why are you wearing a bikini on the cover of that magazine?' Being a strong woman is misconstrued to be something evil and ugly.

A woman can laugh and cry in three seconds and it's not weird. But if a man does it, it's very disturbing. The way I'd describe it is like this: I have been allowed inside the house of womanhood, but I feel that they wouldn't let me in any of the interesting rooms.