When women and men can shed an equal quantity of tears in public, that's when we'll have equal power.
Interpretation
Emotional expression should not be limited by gender, and true equality will be achieved when both men and women can express vulnerability openly.
This quote by Madeleine M. Kunin emphasizes the importance of emotional equality between genders. It suggests that societal norms around gender roles have restricted emotional expression, leading to imbalances in power dynamics. When both men and women can freely express their emotions, including sadness, it indicates a cultural shift towards genuine equality, where no gender feels constrained by stereotypes about how they should behave or feel.
In practice
In a seminar discussing gender roles, this quote illustrates the need for emotional freedom for all genders.
It's time for male leaders to not only ask for binders of qualified women, but to re-write the definition of 'qualified.' The best man for the job, may in fact, be a woman, whose biography is not traditional, but is rich with experiences and skills that are not necessarily learned either in school or on the job.
It's time for women to wake up, to use the power of the vote, to honor the suffragists who chained themselves to the White House fence so that women could vote.
Any smart executive understands that to find the best talent she has to explore new territory that lies beyond familiar geography. That applies not only to gender, but also to race, religion, background and age.
What works for a man, still does not work for a woman - both in terms of how they see themselves and how we see them.
Legislative proposals that would enable an employer to determine whether or not a woman's insurance would cover the cost of birth control strikes women as particularly bizarre. Is the boss going to take care of the children that are conceived accidentally? Stop treating us like children. Women are grown ups.
What some men don't understand is that by opposing policies to reduce violence, promote equal pay and universal healthcare and voting to limit access to contraception and legal abortion, they are relegating women to another century, a time when men ruled exclusively and women were considered property and had to be guided by a firm masculine hand.
In a patriarchal society like ours, women have to fight hard for a seat at the table. Boys are privileged over girls from birth. Equal opportunity and access for both girls and boys must become the norm.
Girls are 50% of the population. We deserve to represent 50% of the heroes.
For a female to write about her feelings, and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated - a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way - that's taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.
The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.
I don't know why women aren't allowed to have the same sort of breadth and scope and flaws of men.
Women have much to tell us. Women are capable of seeing things in a different angle. Women can pose questions that we men cannot understand.
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