The Unfair Sex/Quotes

"But I do think it is their husbands' faults if wives do fall: say that they slack their duties, and pour our treasures into foreign laps, or else break out in peevish jealousies, throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, or scant our former having in despite; why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, yet have we some revenge."

—Emilia, Othello, Act IV, Scene III

"Remember, Nigel, a man's place is in the wrong."

—Beatrice, Kingdom

"Female, n. - One of the opposing, or unfair, sex."

"Wife, n. - A helpmate, or bitter half."

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"So who are the biggest liars, men or women? [...] The way I see it, men lie the most, but women tell the biggest lies. A man's lie is 'I was over at Greg's house.' A woman's lie is, 'It's your baby.'"

—Chris Rock, Bigger And Blacker

"But wasn't it her fault as well as the man's?"
"Nothing is ever a lady's fault, you'll learn that," Lord Trimingham told me.

This remark, confirming something I already felt, made an immense impression on me.

—L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

"Here is a movie about two of the most loathsome women in recent cinema, and the movie thinks the male characters are the villains. It gets away with this only because we have been taught that women are to be presumed good and men are to be presumed evil. Flip the genders in this screenplay, and there would not be the slightest doubt that the characters named Petula and Dorothy are monsters... Men are more violent than women, yes, and guilty of abuse, yes, although the percentage of male monsters is incalculably higher in the movies than in life."

—Roger Ebert, review of Beautiful Creatures (2000)

Back to The Unfair Sex