“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

— Muriel Spark, book The Girls of Slender Means

Source: The Girls of Slender Means

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Muriel Spark19

Scottish writer 1918–2006

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

Bodies of Work (1996)

“There is a predicament of ‘the girl child’. From Life expectancy to literary rates, from school enrollment ratios, from employment to inheritance, there is hardly any society in the world where women are treated at par with men. This wrong and unfortunate discrimination is extended to the girl child.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.255.

“All around us there are other women, seemingly not hurt, making small talk, acting normal, which means happy, not discontent, certainly not devastated. Girls are still being socialised not to identify with - feel empathy for - other females: she got hurt because she did x, y, z - I didn’t, so I didn’t get hurt; she’s at fault, I’m not; the punishment fits her crime; blame her, exonerate him. This continuing, culturally applauded socialisation of women not to empathize with other women is a malignant part of the culture of men, dead white ones or not. Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men. Women are trash when women let men do what men want Women are shrews or puritans when we do not.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.

“Is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight?”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Written in 1852, as quoted in ch. 87.
The Female Experience (1977)

“That's the difference between girls and women: Girls find men fascinating. Women know better.”

Candace Bushnell book One Fifth Avenue

Source: One Fifth Avenue

“Like many of her sex, Sophie was fiercely competitive with other women, working on the crackpot theory that if she could be better in some way, men would like her more, respect her. Make her happy. She never cottoned on that the men she was attracted to, the men who found her attractive, didn’t like women.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)

“What is this thing between women, like men are a joke that women all told each other long ago but men never get it.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Treasure Box (1996)

“Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.”

Anatole France book Histoire contemporaine

Ce sont les hommes qui n'aiment pas les femmes qui s'intéressent à la toilette des femmes. Et les hommes qui aiment les femmes ne voient pas seulement comment elles sont habillées.
Histoire contemporaine: L'anneau d'améthyste (1899)

“Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they really desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 11.

“Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

May 8, 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

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Muriel Spark19

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