Gender Constraints Quotes

I do think there's a preoccupation that women understandably have with this idea of the roles we're meant to play and whether or not those roles serve us or ultimately kind of imprison us.

I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the roles that they play.

I'm far too outspoken to be a woman in Puritan times.

I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

I was not supposed to be in any way a liberated person. I was a female born in the '40s in a patriarchal family; I was supposed to marry and make everyone around me happy.

Women are interested in relationships and how other societies manage those relationships. They may have been constrained in what roles were open to them, but they could question and observe, and they could write it down.

It's like, 'Oh, great, drag queens can excel!' - but then the ceiling is so low. You're only allowed on the first floor; you're not allowed to go play with the big boys upstairs. Even RuPaul, who's a massive success, has been limited to where her music career can take her.

Fear and niceness, the handmaids of all women, or more truly, woman its pretty self.

Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men-they want to wrap women up in a neat little package.

As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do.

I think I'm drawn to female characters partly because they don't have as easy or as obvious a relationship to power in society, and so they suffer under social constraints or have to maneuver within them in ways men sometimes don't or are unconscious about, or have certain liberties that are invisible to them.

Woman too commonly commits the sin of self-sacrifice whereby she consents to be sequestered in the home, without intellectual stimulus, so that the tranquil flame of her unspoiled soul should radiate purity and nobility upon an indefinitely extended family.