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.
Whether women are better than men I cannot say - but I can say they are certainly no worse.
The majority of small-holder farmers in Africa are women and, in urban areas, you're primarily looking at women-led households. So we can't solve hunger if we don't have gender-sensitive programming that addresses access to opportunities for women, whether it's through education or tools for cooking, like solar-powered stoves.
Women, who are a majority of the peoples of the earth, are indispensable to the accumulation of the kind of social capital that is conducive to development, peace, justice and civility.
I was always longing to do, emotionally and physically, what my male counterparts always got to do. I just felt envious, every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of, and it was usually a male lead. And those kinds of roles weren't available. They just weren't being written.
Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.
Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. β¦ Gender equality is your issue, too. β¦ I've seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help, for fear it would make them less of a menβor less of a man. I've seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don't have the benefits of equality, either.
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