1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Warren Farrell

Warren Farrell Quotes
page 2

Warren Thomas Farrell is an American educator, activist and author of seven books on men's and women's issues.

Farrell initially came to prominence in the 1970s as a supporter of second wave feminism; he served on the New York City Board of the National Organization for Women . Although today he is generally considered "the father of the men's movement", he advocates that "there should be neither a women's movement blaming men, nor a men's movement blaming women, but a gender liberation movement freeing both sexes from the rigid roles of the past toward more flexible roles for their future."His books cover history, law, sociology and politics ; couples' communication ; economic and career issues ; child psychology and child custody ; and teenage to adult psychology and socialization . All of his books are related to men's and women's studies, including his March 2018 publication The Boy Crisis. Wikipedia  

✵ 26. June 1943
Warren Farrell photo
Warren Farrell: 467 quotes15 likes

Warren Farrell Quotes

“Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being "given up for a younger woman" is for a woman.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 174.

“Women today are less than half as likely as men to work in excess of 50 hours per week. (Again, working women put in more hours at home.) It is rarer still for women to sustain that commitment for 20 years and then, without having burned out, increase her hours still more as a CEO. But exactly because it is rare, women who are willing stand out as more exceptional. Women, as it turns out, are far more 'European'--working to live rather than living to work. But the glass ceiling is rarely cracked by healthy, balanced people who work to live.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 82.

“After a divorce, men’s biggest fear is, typically, losing their children (women’s is poverty).”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 190.

“The more the father is involved, the more easily the child makes open, receptive, and trusting contact with new people in its life.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 34.

“Part of what a good dad can do, then, is to make sure that his daughter also gets involved with team sports, and to help her with the lessons in life that are innate to any team empowering itself. –page119.”

Warren Farrell

Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“A man convicted of murder is twenty times more likely than a woman convicted of murder to receive the death penalty… Since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty, 120 men—and only 1 woman—have actually been executed. The woman, from North Carolina, said she preferred to be executed… In North Carolina, a man who commits second-degree murder receives a sentence on average of 12.6 years longer than a woman who commits second-degree murder.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 240.

“Creating fatherhood means creating a major psychological shift. Both sexes find it's difficult to fully share the psychological responsibility for the other sex's traditional role -- especially when the other sex is around.”

Warren Farrell

page 90.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“Our focus on discrimination against women during the past 30 years has blinded us to opportunities for women.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. xxiv.

“How, then, can patriarchy be defined? Perhaps it can best be defined as the male area of dominance, responsibility, and subservience in a culture, reinforced by both sexes for the purpose of serving both sexes’ survival needs. How can matriarchy be defined? As the female area of dominance, responsibility, and subservience in a culture, reinforced by both sexes for the purpose of serving both sexes’ survival needs.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 98.

“[A man’s actions] are illegal if a woman decides [it creates a hostile environment], and if a man committed the ‘offense’… Who defines ‘hostile environment’? The woman. Not even the man’s intent makes a legal difference. In all other criminal behavior, intent makes all the difference. Even in homicide. Sexual harassment legislation in its present form makes all man unequal to all women. It is in blatant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection without regard of sex. Thus the political will to protect only women prevails over the constitutional mandate to protect both sexes equally.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 288.

“Farrell’s other eleven defenses are The PMS Defense; The Husband Defense (Warren, I don’t quite know how to summarize this one—not sure I get it); The ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ Defense, aka Learned Helplessness; ‘The Depressed Mother’ Defense; The ‘Mothers Don’t Kill’ Defense; The ‘Children Need Their Mother’ Defense; The ‘Blame-The-Father, Understand-The-Mother’ Defense; The ‘My Child, My Right To Abuse It’ Defense; The Plea Bargain Defense; The Svengali Defense; and The Contract Killing Defense.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, Chapter 12.

“When a man is attracted to a woman, being expected to take the sexual initiative does not increase his power, it increases his paralysis. The possibility of a lawsuit just intensifies the paralysis. Ironically, the more dangerous the waters, the more [telling dirty jokes] serves as a way of testing the waters: if she laughs, maybe she’s interested; if she looks disgusted, maybe she’s not. He would feel much more powerful if she took responsibility for testing the waters.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 294.

“Crime, especially crime involving money, reflects the gap between the expectation to provide and the ability to provide… If we really want men to commit crime as infrequently as women, we can start by not expecting men to provide for women more than we expect women to provide for men.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 215-216.

““Visitation” reflects the era of the absentee father; “parent time” influences the re-emergence of the involved father. “Visitation” reflects the destruction of the family; “parent time” influences the reconstruction of the family. “Parent time” influences an era that understands that as either parents loses, so lose the children.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 187.

“Notice that much of what men do is also done by single mothers so appreciating what men do also helps us appreciate what single moms do.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“At this moment in history, millions of 'working dads' are desiring to do what they do not feel they have the right to do: be more devoted as a dad, less devoted as a worker. This feeling is far more ubiquitous among men executives than women executives in many areas of the world because, for instance, Asia-Pacific women executives today are more than six times as likely to not have children than men executives are. The Asia-Pacific executive man is about six times as likely to be a working dad as an executive woman is to be a working mom.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 113.

“A woman living with her mother has limited freedom; a man living with his mother has limited freedom and limited respect. For most men, the vacuum (of no support system) is so devastating, they’d rather agree with their wife than express their feelings and risk emotional withdrawal.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“The New England Journal of Medicine has recently reported that speaking about one’s faults creates abnormalities in the pulsations of our heart. Tiny abnormalities? No. Abnormalities as great as those produced by riding a stationary bicycle to the point of either exhaustion or chest pain. Perhaps [the criticisms men exchange beginning with adolescence], then, contribute to men being four times more likely than women to suffer heart disease before age fifty. In essence, our sons might be practicing heart-disease training.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 186.

“Solutions: (…) Seek an understanding of the other sex's best intent.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 306.

“Throughout history, men learned that survival, respect and women’s love were all achieved by making a killing –whether killing animals, killing enemies, or making a killing on Wall Street. Women received the money that men produced by loving. Men came to feel themselves as unlovable without the money, property or the heroism it took to make them equal to a woman’s love. Women came to associate men spending money on them as a statement of how much they were valued—even loved-- by the man. Her ability to love became her source of security: a diamond is a girl’s best friend. Essentially this dynamic is true in almost all societies and all classes throughout history.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 135.

“A man becomes successful by repressing his feelings, not expressing his feelings.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 16.

“When a dad admits he is wrong or asks for help, he allows the child to see him- or herself as adequate even when she or he is also wrong. It encourages children to make suggestions and, therefore, to discover their creativity because they have a chance of making a contribution.”

Warren Farrell

page 120.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“In a sense, in the area of child care, children's relationships with parents' working has come full circle. We have gone from the mom-and-pop store (or mom-and-pop farm), with its integration of child care and work, to children-at-home and dad-at-work; to the mom-plus-daddy working at home, with its integration of childcare and work again. From mom-and-pop back to mom-and-pop.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 131.

“We need to fund relationship language in our schools so that future parents will know how to communicate about whether they want children; to communicate with the children they have, and teach their children how to communicate with the world. Technical progress without social skills is a Tower of Babel.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 243.

“No legend told its children of beautiful princesses falling in love with conscientious objectors.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“When only men could register to vote, we required only men to register for the draft. Today both sexes can vote, but only men must register for the draft.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 132.

“addiction to female beauty and sex;”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part IV: Where do we go from here

“Women’s genetic celebrity power magnifies men’s protector instinct. It inspires the government-as-substitute-husband. Men’s addiction to the genetic celebrity is either invisible or in the denial stage—thus we either don’t see it, or when confronted, deny it.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 207.

“A woman has no right to a unilateral choice that affects the rest of a man’s life any more than a man would have the right to a unilateral choice that affects the rest of a woman’s life.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 132.

“Feminists often discuss women having two jobs: work and children. True. But no one discusses those divorced and remarried men who have three jobs: work, and two sets of children to nurture and financially support.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 163.

“If there is one quality that I find is more essential to a successful and happy life than any other, it is empathy. It is at the core of family stability and love. I’ve never had a couple come to me and say, “I want a divorce; my partner understands me.””

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 30.

“[H]umans tend to start the process of change by acknowledging themselves—thus blacks asserted black pride and black is beautiful; women declared I am woman, I am strong; men are saying I am man, I am okay. After a quarter of a century of male bashing, that’s not a bad start.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part IV: Where do we go from here, p. 361.

“Both sexes allow men dentists inside our mouths, but, well, have you ever let a man who is a dental hygienist inside your mouth? The man must earn his way to our private places in a way not required of a woman--he must become the doctor or the dentist, or forget it.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 181.

“My first conflict with NOW erupted in the mid-’70s when NOW chapters increasingly rejected father involvement by rejecting shared parent time as the preferred arrangement after divorce.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 126.

“Together, we came to understand how we beg men to express feelings, but then when men do express feelings, we call it sexism, male chauvinism, or backlash.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. xxvii.

“Most women’s ideal is to not be sexual until nine conditions are met: physical attraction; respect; emotional compatibility; intelligence; singleness; success (or potential ); being asked out; being paid for; and the man risking rejection by initiating the first kiss…. Men want sex as long as only one condition is met—physical attraction.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 13.

“The less our sons our trusted, the less women are able to really love them, and the more women feel entitled to use them as wallets.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 98.

“When we add the devaluation of male values to the demonizing of male sexuality, many boys feel like a pervert before they know who they are.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 103.

“Both sexes work on their lines before they appear onstage. His lines are a lifetime of work; her introductory 'line' is her appearance--or her lack of lines. Just as careers give men power, so beauty gives women power. But just as the comparison between herself and the most beautiful women makes a woman feel powerless, so the comparison between himself and the most successful men makes a man feel powerless.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 106.

“Perhaps the most prevailing expectation of men is our Superman expectation: the fear we are merely Clark Kents who won't be accepted unless we are a Superman.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 96.

“The belief that men don’t need help is part of the problem.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“Our love for children is so immediate in part because we feel their powerlessness immediately; conversely, part of the way we deny our love for men is by denying men’s powerlessness. Too often we have confused love for men with respect for them, especially for their power to take care of us---which is really just love for ourselves.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 360.

“The function of gossip is to create an “in group” bond by creating an “out group” enemy.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“We often think that when a man insults another man by calling him a “girl,” the insult reflects a contempt for women. No. It reflects a contempt for any man who is unwilling to make himself strong enough to protect someone as precious as a woman.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“From the male perspective, when commitment is associated with diamonds and mortgages, promises of love can feel like promises of payment.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 103.

“Men’s immediate path from the Insanity Track to the Sanity Track is in demanding that both sexes have the freedom to strike a balance between homeplace and workplace. Men must expect their wives to financially support them to be fathers as much as they now financially support their wives to be mothers. Women must have our approval to marry the warrior of love rather than the warrior of money.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 212.

“What’s true is that everyone is uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generates rejection. And everyone hates rejection.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 21.

“Look under the “Love and Friendship” section and see dozens of cards designed for women to send to women, most bashing men, and virtually none saying anything loving about men.”

Warren Farrell

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“When a government subsidy deprives the child of its dad the government is really subsidizing child abuse.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 348.

“Options allow a woman to tailor her role to her personality, but if a man expects to provide well, he expects to wear a suit, not to wear what suits him.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 183.