My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.
Erica JongRead
Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Women have been both idealized and oppressed throughout history, leading to a perception of powerlessness.
Erica Jong's quote highlights a significant contradiction in societal views of women; while they have often been romanticized and elevated to an ideal, this idolization has paradoxically resulted in their oppression and marginalization. Instead of empowering women, this idealization can enforce a narrative that ultimately strips them of agency and reinforces systemic inequalities.
Themes
WomenPowerExploitationIdealizationHistory
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on women's rights and empowerment.
More from Erica Jong
All quotes βI have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
Erica JongRead
No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
Erica JongRead
My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.
Erica JongRead
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Erica JongRead
I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.
Erica JongRead
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Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.
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Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.
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...a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.
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Woman" in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether.
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Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin "helping' them. Such a world does not exist - never has.
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Men cannot count, they do not know that two and two make four if women do not tell them so.
Gertrude SteinRead