Warren Farrell
590 quotes
Biography
"Was it possible for the sexes to hear each other without saying, My powerlessness is greater than your powerlessness? It was becoming obvious each sex had a unique experience of both power and powerlessness. In my mind's eye I began to visualize a listening matrix as a framework within which we could hear these different experiences. It looked like this:"
"As I looked more carefully at the listening matrix I saw that during the past twenty years we had taken a magnifying glass to the first of these four quadrants, the female experience of powerlessness. I saw I was subconsciously making a false assumption: The more deeply I understood women's experience of powerlessness, the more I assumed men had the power women did not have. In fact, what I was understanding was the female experience of male power."
"Men tuned into women but not tuned into their own hurts usually retained the attitude that women needed special protection."
"Women’s vulnerability confessing their desire to see men as a success object is matched by men’s confession of compulsiveness of sexual desire for women."
"Together, we came to understand how we beg men to express feelings, but then when men do express feelings, we call it sexism, male chauvinism, or backlash."
"Ralph had lost real power by trying to gain the appearance of power. He was a leader. But he was following a program for leaders ; therefore, he was a follower... he was, as he put it, a high-level mediocre."
"Most women’s ideal is to not be sexual until nine conditions are met: physical attraction; respect; emotional compatibility; intelligence; singleness; success (or potential ); being asked out; being paid for; and the man risking rejection by initiating the first kiss…. Men want sex as long as only one condition is met—physical attraction."
"The best-selling magazines to men are Playboy and Penthouse. These represent men’s primary fantasy: access to as many beautiful women as desired without risk of rejection. The best-selling magazines to women are Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle, representing the female primary fantasy: better homes and gardens and a family circle."
"Cosmopolitan is the best-selling magazine to single women. Cosmo tells single women how they can get a man to commit and achieve her primary fantasy of better homes and gardens. It’s the single female’s version of Playboy. Pornography is the male primary fantasy--access to as many beautiful women as desired without risk of rejection--at a price he can afford!"
"How can I call security a woman's primary fantasy if I am saying it is also her primary need? Because while her primary need is the security of a home and a family circle, her primary fantasy is that someone else will earn enough to pay for them. Hence the focus of 2 billion women on the latest royal wedding."
"In San Diego there is a highly popular course called How to Marry Money. Note that the marriage is to money--not to a person. I inquired about the percentage of men attending... 'The course is really for women,' [the instructor replied,] 'it's not relevant to men.'"
"When men give lines, women learn to not trust men. When women wear makeup, men learn to not trust women. Male lines and female makeup are divorce training."
"The Female Western is the battle between the good and evil methods of getting the men who perform best."
"From evening soaps to preteen romances, [the message is that] inner values are for losers."
"So while in men’s magazines success is a power tool to get sex and love, and therefore the look of success is crucial, in women’s magazines love and sex are power tools to get success—and therefore both the look of love and the sexual tease/promise are crucial."
"The 'enduring theme' [in fiction] of male competition and female competition for the hero/survivor has taken us from the fittest surviving to the brink of no one surviving. Sex roles have gone from functional to dysfunctional almost overnight. This is why the enduring theme must be questioned now."
"Perhaps the most prevailing expectation of men is our Superman expectation: the fear we are merely Clark Kents who won't be accepted unless we are a Superman."
"When divorces meant marriage no longer provided security for a lifetime, women adjusted by focusing on careers as empowerment. But when the sacrifice of a career met the sacrifices in a career, the fantasy of a career became the reality of trade-offs. Women developed career ambivalence."
"From the male perspective, when commitment is associated with diamonds and mortgages, promises of love can feel like promises of payment."
"When women are at the height of their beauty power and exercise it, we call it marriage. When men are at the height of their success power and exercise it, we call it a mid-life crisis."
"He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy — sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy — commitment."
"[M]en who work to make it as computer whizzes or owners of black Porsches[...] are confused when they're told they are not vulnerable enough. We can't fall in love with men who appear invulnerable and expect vulnerability. Why did he want a black Porsche? Because he never saw an ugly woman get out of one."
"Both sexes work on their lines before they appear onstage. His lines are a lifetime of work; her introductory 'line' is her appearance--or her lack of lines. Just as careers give men power, so beauty gives women power. But just as the comparison between herself and the most beautiful women makes a woman feel powerless, so the comparison between himself and the most successful men makes a man feel powerless."
"Male Message 1 is subconsciously experienced by the boy like this: ‘Some girls in my class already look like movie stars. If they wanted me as much as I want them, then I’d know I was okay. They are genetic celebrities. I am a genetic groupie.’"
"When women's consciousness was raised, women ended up seeing housework as their shit work ; when men's consciousness is raised, risking sexual rejection will be seen as the male shit work ."