A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.
Naomi WolfRead
I don't think most men do hate women at all - I think most men are trying their best and facing a culturation into masculine behaviour that forces them to deny their own humanity and to exaggerate distance from the world of women.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that men's negative attitudes toward women often stem from societal pressures rather than inherent hatred.
Naomi Wolf argues that many men do not inherently hate women, but rather find themselves struggling against societal expectations of masculinity that compel them to suppress their emotions and distance themselves from their humanity and from women. This perspective highlights the impact of cultural conditioning on men's behavior and relationships with women.
Themes
MasculinityRelationshipsHumanityCultural ConditioningGender Dynamics
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a seminar discussing gender roles and expectations in modern society.
More from Naomi Wolf
All quotes →Looking back on 200 years of feminist agitation in this country, we've got to get it that the moral high ground doesn't get us anything. Pleading with powerful men never gets us what we need. Talking doesn't do it. Being right doesn't do it. Hardball politics does it ... and a political strategy.
Naomi WolfRead
The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon them.
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The woman wins who calls herself beautiful, and challenges the world to change to fit her vision.
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The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.
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Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty "fixes" that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time.
Naomi WolfRead
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