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Warren Farrell Quotes
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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

“Perhaps the biggest appreciation adjustment we need is toward the millions of men and women we call stepparents. We have taken for granted especially the stepparents who are raising no children of their own, and receiving no income from a significant other, but who have nevertheless chosen to invest love, time and money in children.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 246.

“Neither men nor women are exempt from killing loved ones. The difference is in what happens to them when they do. Twelve distinct female-only defenses allow a woman who commits a premeditated murder to have the charges dropped or significantly reduced. No man has successfully used any of these defenses in similar circumstances.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 254.

“The rules of sexism do not free men from the terror of violence; they only keep men from complaining about it.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 232.

“Men’s life expectancy was one year less than women’s in 1920; today, it is seven years less, yet the federal government has only an Office of Research on Women’s Health.”

Warren Farrell

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

“A part-time working woman makes $1.10 for every dollar made by her male counterpart.”

Warren Farrell

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

“We can decrease abuse and murder when we get that for both sexes, abuse does not derive from power, but powerlessness.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 282.

“Most rapes of men occur in prison. But even outside of prison, about 9 percent of reported rapes are against men (probably mostly by men, but no one knows for sure). Even rape outside of prison, then, is about as significant an issue for men as AIDS is for women—about 10 percent of the people dying of AIDS are women. Do we hear more about men being raped or about women getting AIDS?”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 335.

“In a sense, sexual harassment lawsuits are just the latest version of the female selection process—allowing her to select for men who care enough for her to put their career at risk; who have enough finesse to initiate without becoming a jerk and enough guts to initiate despite a potential lawsuit… In the past, though, the process of his overcoming her barriers was called ‘courtship.’ Now it is called either ‘courtship’ or ‘sexual harassment’.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 291.

“When women entered the workplace, many men were mentors to them and, in turn, also learned to respect women’s unique contributions (for example, their listening and facilitative skills). Now, as we give men responsibilities to care for children, women must be among the mentors, and we must also learn to respect men’s unique contributions.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 236.

“In San Diego there is a highly popular course called How to Marry Money. Note that the marriage is to money--not to a person. I inquired about the percentage of men attending… 'The course is really for women,' [the instructor replied, ] 'it's not relevant to men.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 43.

“He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy — sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy — commitment.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 105.

“The people considered the most in need of protection were women and children. The sex considered most disposable was men – or males….”

Warren Farrell

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

“Men’s pay paid women to love and nurture, to connect and feel. To be nurturer-connectors. In contrast, men received their pay by being some form of killer-protector. By becoming a human doing (a captain or a coal miner), not a human being”

Warren Farrell

a person who feels happy or sad
Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“Every day, almost as many men are killed at work as were killed during the average day in Vietnam. For men, there are, in essence, three male-only drafts: the draft of men to all the wars; the draft of Everyman to unpaid bodyguard; the draft of men to all the hazardous jobs—or ‘death professions.”

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. 105.

“In brief, when a man fails as a wallet, we put him in prison; when a woman fails as a mother, we offer her social services. We’re taking a criminal approach to men, a social services approach to women.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 179.

“In one decade, women had gotten more protection against offensive jokes in the workplace than men had gotten in centuries against being killed in the workplace.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

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

“When we train men for war, we lose some part of every man we train -- even if we win the war. When we train men to be better nurturers, even men who fail the course will have won. And so will every child they ever meet. Training men to love is a nation’s best investment.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 112.

“What is the impact on our children of this international “Sisterhood is Victimhood” bonding?”

Warren Farrell

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

“In post offices throughout the United States, Selective Service posters [reading "A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do] remind men that only they must register for the draft. If the Post Office had a poster saying "A Jew's Gotta Do What A Jew's Gotta Do…" or if "A Woman's Gotta Do…"”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

were written across the body of a pregnant woman...
Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 28.

“In Stage I, divorces were not allowed, so men's [sexual] affairs did not put women's economic security in jeopardy; in Stage II, affairs could lead to divorce, so men's affairs did place women's economic security in jeopardy. We did not want political leaders who would be role models for behavior that would put women's economic security in jeopardy.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 63.

“All of these battered husbands are still with their wives. When a woman stays with a man who batters, we provide shelters to encourage her to escape. If she decides not to escape, we say she is a victim of “Battered Woman Syndrome."”

Warren Farrell

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

“By the 1970s, the American woman was being called ‘liberated’ or ‘superwoman’ while the American man was being called ‘baby killer’ if he fought in Vietnam, ‘traitor’ if he protested, or ‘apathetic’ if he did neither. Even men who came home paraplegics were literally spit on.”

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. 155.

“If we taught men to repress feelings and rewarded him instead for being a captain he might be willing to die to protect us; if we paid him enough to feed his family if he worked in a coal mine, he might be willing to die sooner to keep us warm. But all that required him to forfeit his feelings – his power as a human being – and substitute it for “power” as a human doing: feeling obligated to earn money someone else spent while he died sooner.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Myth. Rape is a manifestation of male political and economic power. Fact. Any given black man is three times as likely to be reported a rapist as a white man. Do blacks suddenly have more political and economic power? Maybe rape does not derive from power, but rather from powerlessness.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 310.

“Sharing instructions about how to perform better for others is very different than sharing feelings about life experiences that make us happy or sad.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Men tuned into women but not tuned into their own hurts usually retained the attitude that women needed special protection.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Men may be way behind in creating choices for themselves, but have actually been quiet supporters of the choices women want for themselves.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 123.

“The Male Teacher Corps not only exposes children to men from a variety of professions, but exposes children to men with more risk-taking, entrepreneurial male energy and values, creating a balance between exposure to the male and female value systems.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 116.

“When our binoculars are focused on the dad as “deadbeat,” it often even leads us to missing concrete cues a dad gives to show his desire to be involved.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 106.

“Commitment often means that a woman achieves her primary fantasy, while a man gives his up. In exchange for forfeiting his primary fantasy, what does he hope to fulfill? His primary need: intimacy.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 150.

“Hochschild’s biggest mistake, though, was one made by almost every popularized housework study: not adequately measuring men’s contribution to work around the home. For example, if mom drives the children to daycare, it’s called housework; if dad drives the family to grandma’s, it isn’t called housework.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Since no one is always right, always being right is really a role model for his children feeling inadequate.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 120.

“We do not yet understand that when we neglect men, we rape women.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 336.

“I define power as control over one’s life. Pay is not about power. Pay is about giving up power to get the power of pay.”

Warren Farrell

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

“The first instinctive response to any criticism is a defensive response. (The quicker the response, the more defensive.)”

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 40.

“The most frequent way men are raped by adult women is "birth control rape."”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 335.

“No movement calls [migrant workers] oppressed for providing money for women from whom they are receiving neither cooking nor cleaning; for providing their wives with homes while they sleep on the ground.”

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. 111.

“From a woman’s perspective, sharing parent time feels like what a man might experience if his ex-wife came to his office and shared his career. He might claim the sharing is not in the best interests of the employer. But what he really would be caring about is the affront should his ex-wife do as good as he at his own job. While the fear is understandable, the difference is that his career is his, their children are theirs.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 191.

“The emphasis of the men’s group was on understanding, coping, changing the situation and then, if all else failed, getting out; the emphasis of battered women’s groups is on getting out first, and second, locking up the problem”

Warren Farrell

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

“No force is more powerful -- or more multiple -- than the family.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 246.

“Test this out on yourself. Imagine that for a month you have neither had your garbage picked up nor an opportunity to read about new anthropological discoveries. Which would you pay more money to remedy? A society that functions effectively adjusts the pay until the supply matches the need. Failure to make these adjustments not only leaves streets filled with garbage, but also leaves unemployment lines filled with anthropologists.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 211.

“Why do we resist giving help to homeless men? In part because we don’t understand how our pressure on men to support families often forces men to take transient jobs that are but a step away from homelessness (the death-of-a-salesman jobs, the migrant worker jobs…) and in part because we respond differently to men who fail”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

than women who fail
Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 209.

“In a Stage II world, in communities in which survival is mastered enough to create a balance with self-fulfillment, we have the option of “relationship language” that nourishes the soul.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 116.

“Men are the Rosie-the-Riveters of parenting: They’re brought in only when needed, and considered disposable thereafter.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 115.

“For thousands of years, most marriages were in Stage I--survival-focused. After World War II, marriages increasingly flirted with Stage II--a self-fulfillment focus… Love's definition is in a transition.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 42.

“A family that knows how to play together has the tools to stay together.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 59.

“Four men describe how their wives hit them in the lower back with a pole, cracked them over the head or in the neck with a frying pan… the audience renews its laughter after each story. The men are part of a “PMS Men’s Support Group.” Imagine an audience of men laughing as battered women describe how their husbands threatened them with brain or spinal cord injuries by battering them over their heads or in their necks with a frying pan.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Unfortunately, the process of gaining money in [a man’s] life usually meant alienating the wife in his life. Sometimes this leads to a legal divorce, but more often to a psychological divorce. Which is why a survey of doctors’ wives reported in Medical/Mrs. Found the doctors’ wives harboring hostility that was ‘stunning to behold.’ Yet the wives remained married to the doctors. Why? More than anything else, the wives said, they wanted security from marriage… the men, then, were often prostitutes to an illusion of emotional security. At least their wives had the reality of economic security.”

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. 203.

“Nothing threatens a father’s involvement in the family more than his obligation to be the family’s “financial womb,” creating “The Father’s ‘Catch-22’”: loving the family by being away from the family. It is the irony of traditional fatherhood: being a father by not being a father.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 90.

“Shifting our attitudes about the future of fathers requires shifting our attitudes about the way our fathers loved. Recognizing that the rigid roles of the past were not designed by men to serve only men is not unrelated to shifting our attitudes toward dad.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 239.