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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

“Sexual harassment in the workplace confuses rewards for performance with rewards for attractiveness and sexual availability.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 284-5.

“The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labor unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labor unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon become taxpayer-supported women’s unions.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 344.

“Misandry – or man hating – is the equivalent of misogyny. If you are unaware of misandry, welcome to the club.”

Warren Farrell

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

“As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don’t put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a “no” into a “maybe” into a “yes.” If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the “yes” turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 321.

“Your daughter says, 'Dad. Mom. I want to join the armed services.' You look at her beautiful face, her life flashes before your eyes, and you see a body bag. Now's the time to let her know the biggest military secret: She can join the military and be as safe-from-death as she would be at home. How? In the war in Iraq, not a single woman has been killed in the Air Force. Nor has a single woman been killed in the Marines. And only one has died in the Navy. Your only job is to keep her out of the Army.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 30.

“Laws with broad definitions of rape are like laws making 55 mile per hour speed limits for men and no speed limits for women.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 317.

“Women-in-jeopardy movies are, in essence, the updated versions of men dying to save the princess from the dragon to earn her love. They are modern-day training films for teaching women to select the best protectors while weeding out the rest.”

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. 225.

“Our choice of partners is perhaps the clearest single statement of our choice of values. Therefore, when we blame our partner for anything, we should really be confronting ourselves. Not as in “Yes, I made a bad choice,” but as in “How does this choice reflect my values?””

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 17.

“All defensive responses to criticism are natural. (It is natural to think of our own perspective before someone else’s.)”

Warren Farrell

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

“The more our children see men being paid to take responsibility for children, the more respectable it will be for men to do work compatible with their role as dads.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Men often become nonviolent in societies that (1) have adequate amounts of food, (2) have adequate amounts of water, and (3) perceive themselves as isolated from attack. For example, the Tahitian men, the Minoan men on Crete, and the Central Malaysian Semai were nonviolent during the period in their history when all three of these conditions prevailed.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 77.

“Most mothers want more of dad in their children’s lives, not less.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 186.

“Although a government study found that men’s health was much worse than women’s health or the health of any minority group, headlines around the country read: ‘Minorities Face Large Health Care Gap.’ They did not say: ‘Men Face Large Health Care Gap.’ Why? Because we associate the sacrifice of men’s lives with the saving of the rest of us, and this association leads us to carry in our unconscious an incentive not to care about men living longer.”

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. 196.

“With men, we blame the victim. We blame men because we have camouflaged men’s victimization by teaching men to also be the victimizer. Men’s victimizer status camouflages men’s victim status.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part IV: Where do we go from here, p. 357.

“Men goeth to that place from which appreciation cometh.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 238.

“It is important for a father who feels pushed away to say, in effect, "When you do that, I feel unwanted as a father," or "I feel my rough-housing is not bad parenting; it's my contribution to helping our child take risks." Women cannot hear what men do not say.”

Warren Farrell

page 105.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“Somehow, women’s romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said “No”. They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this “marry the rapist” theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of women’s most enduring romance novels.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 315.

“When I see dads being most effective with children, it is usually when they have an intuitive understanding that, for example, the car trip to and from the soccer game is potentially as important as the game itself.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 118.

“I feel awed by the mystery of being both so finite and yet so infinite, so much and so little, so conscious and yet, so coincidental.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Interview by Jonathan Robinson (1994), p. 46-47.

“Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace: The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 114.

“The problem with every judgment of sexual behavior is that it is made by people who aren’t being stimulated as they are making the judgment. A jury that sees a woman in a sterile courtroom, asks her what she wanted, and then assumes that anything else she did was the responsibility of the man is insulting not only the woman but the power of sex.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 312.

“Circumcision in the United States is routinely performed without anesthesia, though anesthesia reduces the infant's stress and prevents infection and blood clots.”

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. 221.

“I would suggest that just as women who make it in the world of business need male business mentors, perhaps men who make it in the world of emotions will need female emotional mentors.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 317.

“Women's greater social desirability and beauty power afford opportunities for creating both measurable and invisible income. While the opportunities are available to almost all women and some men, they are available in abundance to the genetic celebrity … a woman so beautiful that men do more than look and talk--they follow her.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 191.

“When we give trust, we receive trust. And people who trust us pay attention to us.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 33.

“[T]here are really seven different [kinds of] sexual interactions occurring in the workplace… Sexual blackmail. A boss threatens to fire an employee unless she or he is sexual… Sexual bribery. An executive promises a promotion in exchange for sex. This can be explicit or implicit… Workplace prostitution. An employee is sexual in exchange for a promotion; a salesperson is sexual to win a sale. The sex can be given or just promised… Workplace incest. Consensual sex among employees. The workplace, like the family, has lines of authority which sexual bonding tends to blur… Sexual harassment. Repeated sexual advances at work after an employee has said ‘no’… Workplace flirtation. Suggestive dress, flirtations eye contact, a combination of touching and eye signals… Workplace porn. Pinups, lewd jokes, and sexual innuendos made in groups…”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 297-9.

“From evening soaps to preteen romances, [the message is that] inner values are for losers.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 73.

“Employers are NOT prohibited from practicing sex discrimination in hiring and promoting employees.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 344.

“If we want our children to have a balance between their abilities to earn money and show love, it will help if both their parents model that balance.”

Warren Farrell

page 114.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“A man being sued after a woman has more sex than intended is like Lay’s being sued after someone has more potato chips than intended. In brief, date rape can be a crime, a misunderstanding, or buyer’s remorse.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 312.

“Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II society, we have neglected to teach this generation relationship language and conflict resolution skills to address the social and psychological needs of a Stage II society. And when it is taught, in countries like Germany, although called “social competence” it focuses on workplace teamwork -- still on survival, breadwinner oriented work goals.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Early feminists sensed this: they were strong opponents of protective legislation. They knew that as long as the princess was protected from the pea, women would be deprived of equality. The modern-day woman’s ‘pea under the mattress’ is the rough spots in the workplace. When today’s feminists are proponents of protective legislation, they oppose equality. Sexual harassment legislation is sexist because it makes only the man responsible for the male role in the sexual dance.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 307.

“If we both ignore the unique contribution of “male-style” parenting and jail a man who responsibly contributes it, fatherhood becomes another hazardous occupation. More precisely, it becomes the largest 100%-male hazardous occupation. And in the process, our children lose one of the greatest potential gifts of Stage II -- genuine fatherhood. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are ways of creating a father and child reunion….”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 237.

“Even a 30-year-old man whose wife dies is eleven times more likely to commit suicide than a 30-year-old man whose wife is living. At age 30, when men can bury themselves in their jobs and are physically and financially attractive to women, the loss of the one woman a man loves is so devastating it is often not softened even by the opportunities for many women… in brief, it is the loss of love that devastates 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. 169.

“All of this is men’s genetic heritage. However, men’s genetic heritage is in conflict with their genetic future.”

Warren Farrell

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

“Survey 2001: Men who never married, never had a child, worked full time and were college educated earn only 85% of what women with the same criteria earn.”

Warren Farrell

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

“If we are to inspire men to father it also helps to stop reflexively condemning men as afraid of commitment and address what they are afraid of. –page246.”

Warren Farrell

Father and Child Reunion (2001)

“Pay is about the power we forfeit to get the power of pay. For example, we forfeit power when we work for others, not ourselves, but we get the power of the paycheck when we do that.”

Warren Farrell

Why Men Earn More (2005)

“Men give the same lines to different women for the same reason women wear the same perfume for different men; we all try the things that work.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 246.

“Divorce laws have given women economic support after divorce; no laws have given men emotional support after divorce. Men are required to continue their obligations to their exes in the form of alimony or child support; women are not required to continue their obligation to their exes in the form of homemaking or nurturing.”

Warren Farrell

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

“If a man ignoring a woman’s verbal “no” is committing date rape, then a woman who says “no” with her verbal language but “yes” with her body language is committing date fraud. And a woman who continues to be sexual even after she says “no” is committing date lying.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

p 314.
The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband

“Many women are discovering that the motherhood instinct implies a responsibility to be certain children have dads -- everyday, not far away; and some are aware that economic independence requires not holding on to her child as if it were her job.”

Warren Farrell

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

“We had affirmative action programs to help women help themselves economically. Is it now time for affirmative action programs to do for men’s feelings what the government did for women’s economics?”

Warren Farrell

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

“In the future, women will increasingly want nurturer-connectors, since part of what he will be nurturing is her ability to protect herself.”

Warren Farrell

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

“During what years should a child be introduced to better ways of giving and receiving criticisms – to what I call “relationship language”? Before school age. The best teacher? Parents.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 36.

“The best-selling magazines to men are Playboy and Penthouse. These represent men’s primary fantasy: access to as many beautiful women as desired without risk of rejection. The best-selling magazines to women are Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle, representing the female primary fantasy: better homes and gardens and a family circle.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 18.

“The Industrial Revolution, then, took men’s occasional absence from home -- previously needed only in wartime and for hunting -- and made it the norm. This increasing division of labor magnified the division of men’s and women’s interests. It magnified the belief in the maternal instinct and the reality of the distant father. Prior to industrialization, divorces usually led to children living with dads. Not after.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 88.

“If the law tries to legislate our “yeses” and “noes” it will produce “the straitjacket generation” – a generation afraid to flirt, fearful of finding its love notes in a court suit. Date rape legislation will force suitors and courting to give way to courts and suing.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 340.

“Just as the Depression left a generation of dads feeling they never had enough money, so father deprivation is leaving a generation of sons and daughters with different psychic wounds.”

Warren Farrell

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 121.

“When a parent denies a child its “parent time,” that parent is denying the child its child support -- its psychological child support.”

Warren Farrell

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