Warren Farrell > Quotes

“When women hold off from marrying men, we call it independence. When men hold off from marrying women, we call it fear of commitment.”
― Warren Farrell

“Men’s greatest weakness is their facade of strength, and women’s greatest strength is their facade of weakness.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“I am a men's liberationist (or "masculist") when men's liberation is defined as equal opportunity and equal responsibility for both sexes. I am a feminist when feminism favors equal opportunities and responsibilities for both sexes. I oppose both movements when either says our sex is THE oppressed sex, therefore, "we deserve rights." That's not gender liberation but gender entitlement. Ultimately, I am in favor of neither a women's movement nor a men's movement but a gender transition movement.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“It is in the interests of both sexes to hear the other sex's experience of powerlessness.”
― Warren Farrell

“When a man is able to connect with his feelings, he is able to care more.”
― Warren Farrell

“The equivalent of a woman being treated as a sex object is a man being treated as a success object.”
― Warren Farrell

“The single biggest barrier to getting men to look within is that what any other group would call powerlessness, men have been taught to call power. We don't call "male-killing" sexism; we call it "glory." We don't call the one million men who were killed or maimed in one battle in World War I (the Battle of the Somme) a holocaust, we call it "serving the country." We don't call those who selected only men to die "murderers." We call them "voters." Our slogan for women is "A Woman's Body, A Woman's Choice"; our slogan for men is "A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“And if your son is unemployed? Three out of four women say they would not date an unemployed man. In contrast, for two-thirds of men, dating an unemployed woman is a nonissue.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“Every day in about half the advertisements, a man sees the constant reminder of the woman he was not worthy of.”
― Warren Farrell, Why Men Are the Way They Are

“Children living with their dad felt positively about their mom; children living with their mom were more likely to think negatively of their dad.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“During wartime, experimental drugs were often tried on men. If a drug failed, the man died. But if a drug succeeded, it was used to save both women and men, but without women dying to develop it. Men were similarly used as guinea pigs in the development of emergency procedures, microwave ovens (a man was inadvertently “cooked” during the testing process7), and other advances that served both sexes. Later it was labeled sexism that physicians studied men more than women. No one labeled it sexism because men were used as guinea pigs more than women.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“In these ways, your son's economic health can dictate his ability to be loved, which makes his economic health inseparable from his mental health, and therefore his physical health. And few things affect his economic health more than his education.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“The discipline of postponing gratification is the single most important discipline your son needs.”
― Warren Farrell PhD, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“Women do not enter a profession in significant numbers until it is physically safe. So until we care enough about men's safety to turn the death professions into safe professions, we in effect discriminate against women.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“In a study of more than twelve thousand teenagers after divorce, children living with single dads fared better than children living with single moms.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“The trading of wit-covered put-downs is boys and men training each other to handle criticism, unconsciously knowing that the ability to handle criticism is a prerequisite to success.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“Practically speaking, when more than 90 percent of women got married and divorce was rare, discrimination in favor of men at work meant discrimination in favor of their wives at home. When workplace discrimination worked in favor of women at home, no one called it sexism. Why? It was working for women. Only when discrimination switched from working for women to working against women (because more women were working) did it get called sexism. For example: During the years I was on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women in New York City, the most resistant audiences I ever faced in the process of doing corporate workshops on equality in the workplace were not male executives—they were the wives of male executives.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“So one of my core themes in The Myth of Male Power—that history’s controlling force was not patriarchy, but survival—is still ignored. Instead, the leading universities’ women’s studies and “gender studies” courses still emanate from the Marxist and Civil Rights model of oppressor vs. oppressed. We’ll see in this book exactly why the dichotomy of oppressor/oppressed is both inaccurate and, more important, undermines love and women’s empowerment. In virtually every leading university this leads to a demonizing of men and masculinity that distorts the very essence of traditional masculinity—being socialized to be a hero by being willing to sacrifice oneself in war or in work. The possibility that being socialized to be disposable is not genuine power is, to this day, either considered radical, heretical, or, most frequently, not considered.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“In one generation, young men have gone from 61 percent of college degree recipients to a projected 39 percent; young women, from 39 percent to a projected 61 percent.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“Every day, 150 workers die from hazardous working conditions. And 92 percent are male.”
― Warren Farrell PhD, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“MY BODY, MY CHOICE” POWER In the 1990s, if a woman and man make love and she says she is using birth control but is not, she has the right to raise the child without his knowing he even has a child, and then to sue him for retroactive child support even ten to twenty years later (depending on the state). This forces him to take a job with more pay and more stress and therefore earlier death. Although it’s his body, he has no choice. He has the option of being a slave (working for another without pay or choice) or being a criminal. Roe v. Wade gave women the vote over their bodies. Men still don’t have the vote over theirs—whether in love or war.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“In 1970, when Dr. Edgar Berman said women’s hormones during menstruation and menopause could have a detrimental influence on women’s decision making, feminists were outraged. He was soon served up as the quintessential example of medical male chauvinism.12 But by the 1980s, some feminists were saying that PMS was the reason a woman who deliberately killed a man should go free. In England, the PMS defense freed Christine English after she confessed to killing her boyfriend by deliberately ramming him into a utility pole with her car; and, after killing a coworker, Sandie Smith was put on probation—with one condition: she must report monthly for injections of progesterone to control symptoms of PMS.13 By the 1990s, the PMS defense paved the way for other hormonal defenses. Sheryl Lynn Massip could place her 6-month-old son under a car, run over him repeatedly, and then, uncertain he was dead, do it again, then claim postpartum depression and be given outpatient medical help.14 No feminist protested. In the 1970s, then, feminists”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“Ideally there should not be a men's movement but a gender transition movement; only the power of the women's movement necessitates the temporary corrective of a men's movement.”
― Warren Farrell

“If taking on a wife for life in an institution called marriage were a sign of male privilege, why did “husband” derive from the Germanic “house” and the Old Norse for “bound” or “bondage”?68 Why did it also come from words meaning “a male kept for breeding,” “one who tills the soil,” and “the male of the pair of lower animals.”69 Conversely, if marriage were as awful for women as many feminists claim, why is it the centerpiece of female fantasies in myths and legends of the past, or romance novels and soap operas of the present? Spartan boys who were deprived of their families were deprived, not privileged. Boys deprived of women’s love until they risked their lives at work or war were also deprived—or dead. Training boys to kill boys was considered moral when it led to survival, immoral only when it threatened survival. In these respects, “patriarchy” created male deprivation and male death, not male privilege.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“Three-quarters of dads who were in South Carolina jails for being behind in child support payments suffer from extreme poverty. And one-eighth of all South Carolina inmates are in jail for being behind in child support payments. No dad is imprisoned for not spending enough time with his children. And it is rare for a mom to go to jail for preventing dad from spending enough time with his children.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“When Time magazine ran a cover story of each of the 464 people shot in a single week, it concluded: “The victims were frequently those most vulnerable in society: the poor, the young, the abandoned, the ill, and the elderly.”13 When you read that, did you think of men? One had to count the pictures to discover that 84 percent of the faces behind the statistics were those of men and boys. In fact, the victims were mostly poor men, young men, abandoned men, ill men, and elderly men. Yet a woman—and only a woman—was featured on the cover. Men are the invisible victims of America’s violence.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“But here's the first clue: the male-female pay gap is not a gap between men and women; it is a gap between moms and dads. Or more precisely, between men and women's work-life decisions when they become moms and dads.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“ARE WOMEN INHERENTLY LESS WARLIKE THAN MEN? Throughout history, women in power have used a rationale similar to men’s to send men to death with similar frequency and in similar numbers. For example, the drink Bloody Mary was named after Mary Tudor (Queen Mary I), who burned 300 Protestants at the stake; when Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth I, ascended to the throne, she mercilessly raped, burned, and pillaged Ireland at a time when Ireland was called the Isle of Saints and Scholars. When a Roman king died, his widow sent 80,000 men to their deaths.29 If Columbus was an exploiter, we must remember that Queen Isabella helped to send him.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power

“If children live in separate homes, proximity to the other parent has been found to be the single most important factor determining a child's likelihood of success.”
― Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

“TRUE OR FALSE? Employers are prohibited from practicing sex discrimination in hiring and promoting employees.1 ANSWER: False. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that in job areas dominated by men, less qualified women could be hired.2 It did not allow less qualified men to be hired in areas dominated by women (e.g., elementary school teacher, nurse, secretary, cocktail waiting, restaurant host, office receptionist, flight attendant). The law also requires sex discrimination in hiring by requiring quotas, requiring vigorous recruitment of women, and requiring all institutions that receive government aid to do a certain percentage of their business with female-owned (or minority-owned) businesses.”
― Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power