Quotes from book
The Myth of Male Power

The Myth of Male Power
Warren Farrell

The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex is a 1993 book by Warren Farrell, in which the author argues that the widespread perception of men having inordinate social and economic power is false, and that men are systematically disadvantaged in many ways.

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“[T]he men who are successful have become the most dependent on success to attract love. When this man loses his success, he often fears he will lose love.”

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. 172.

Warren Farrell photo

“I am often asked why men don’t get as worked up as they might about women—particularly poor women—having to use their bodies as prostitutes. Because most men unconsciously experience themselves as prostitutes every day—the miner, the firefighter, the construction worker, the logger, the soldier, the meatpacker—these men are prostitutes in the direct sense: they sacrifice their bodies for money and for their families.”

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. 233.

Warren Farrell photo

“When we hear men are the greater victims of crime, we tend to say, ‘Well, it’s men hurting other men.’ When we hear that blacks are the greater victims, we consider it racist to say, ‘Well, it’s blacks hurting blacks.’ The victim is a victim no matter who the perpetrator was.”

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.

Warren Farrell photo

“Women will risk their lives to protect children, but rarely risk their lives to protect an adult man.”

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. 230.

Warren Farrell photo

“Feminism has taught women to sue men for sexual harassment or date rape when men initiate with the wrong person or with the wrong timing; no one has taught men to sue women for sexual trauma for saying “yes,” then “no,” then “yes.” … Men [are] still expected to initiate, but now, if they [do] it badly, they could go to jail.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 16.

Warren Farrell photo

“The weakness of men is the facade of strength; the strength of women is the facade of weakness.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 13.

Warren Farrell photo

“When we commit violence against an infant girl, we call it child abuse; when we commit violence against an infant boy, we call it circumcision.”

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.

Warren Farrell photo

“It is often said that women are a civilizing balance to the innately warlike male. By taking care of the killing for women it could be said that men civilized women. When survival was the issue, men killing to protect what women bore was the male form of nurturance.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 79.

Warren Farrell photo

“Sexual harassment legislation feels unfair to men because if they sued over an ethnic joke, or over a woman discussing pornography or asking them out, they’d be laughed out of the company.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 289.

Warren Farrell photo

“We often hear, “Rape is rape, right?” No. A stranger forcing himself on a woman at knife point is different from a man and woman having sex while drunk and having regrets the morning. What is different? When a woman agrees to a date, she does not make a choice to be sexual, but she does make a choice to explore sexual possibilities. The woman makes no such choice with a stranger or an acquaintance.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

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

Warren Farrell photo

“If power means having control over one's own life, then perhaps there is no better ranking of the impact of sex roles and racism on power over our own lives than life expectancy.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 30.

Warren Farrell photo

“The teenage female has less demand to perform and more resources to attract love. Her body and mind are more genetic gifts.”

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. 166.

Warren Farrell photo

“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. And this creates a special challenge for men: There are few political movements filled with healthy people, yet few healthy changes have occurred without political movements.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part IV: Where do we go from here, p. 356.

Warren Farrell photo

“When a man is forced into early retirement, he is often being ‘given up for a younger man.’ Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being ‘given up for a younger woman’ is for a woman… Why do many men get more upset by retirement than women do from the empty nest —when their children leave home? When females retire from children, they can try a career; when a man retires from a career, his children are gone.”

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.

Warren Farrell photo

“It is also possible for a woman to go back to a man’s room, tell him she doesn’t want to have intercourse, mean it, start kissing, have intercourse, and then wish she hadn’t in the morning. How? Kissing is like eating potato chips. Before we know it, we’ve gone further than we said we would.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 311.

Warren Farrell photo

“We have entered 'The Era of the Three-Option Woman and the No-Option Man.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 52.

Warren Farrell photo

“[This is] the basis of the Innocent Woman Defense —the Innocent Woman Principle : Women are believed when they say they are innocent of violence and most easily doubted when they say they are guilty of violence.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 255.

Warren Farrell photo

“Women's liberation and the male midlife crisis were the same search--for personal fulfillment, common values, mutual respect, love. But while women's liberation was thought of as promoting identity, the male midlife crisis was thought of as an identity crisis.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 44.

Warren Farrell photo

“The world increasingly allows girls to be whoever they wish to be-- homemaker, mother, secretary, executive.”

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. 167.

Warren Farrell photo

“Veterans of every war suffer Battered Man Syndrome in the form of posttraumatic stress disorder. The emotional consequences are also with them for years. But if a sufferer killed Admiral Zumwalt for ordering the spraying of Agent Orange, he would be convicted for murder. Men who suffer Battered Man Syndrome are not allowed to attack their abuser and call it self-defense.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 264.

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