I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.""Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

I think people would live a bit longer if they didn't know how old they were. Age puts restrictions on things.

I don't fit into any stereotypes. And I like myself that way.

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.

I bet you anything that 10 times out of 10, Nicky, Vinny and Tony will beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle and Tucker.

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.

Do you really believe ... that everything historians tell us about men – or about women – is actually true? You ought to consider the fact that these histories have been written by men, who never tell the truth except by accident.

Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.

Christ delves far beyond the means of superficiality, not simply because of his immaculate love, but also because he considers the distinct cases of each individual rather than withholding a broadened perception by use of stereotypes.

O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.

I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

... unfools of unbeing ... means quite clearly people who are too stereotyped to be eccentric – people who are too dead spiritually to exist at all and who call alive individual fools

A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. "Well," said the man, "I shouldn't have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing." I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.

Is it possible to say "It was a beautiful morning at the end of November" without feeling like Snoopy?

I think fitting in is highly overrated. I’d rather just fit out... Fitting out means being who you are, even when people insist that you have to change. Fitting out means taking up space, not apologizing for yourself, and not agreeing with those who seek to label you with stereotypes.

I’d like them to appreciate the power of the individual—and I don’t mean me; I mean the power each person has to make choices and be accountable for himself or herself. I’ve noticed that people are quick to put you in a category—if you come from this place then you are that thing. But I’ve never placed much value in statistics and trends, bar graphs and socioeconomic data that sum people up. I stop listening when somebody asks me if I know what my chances are. I don’t know that I believe in probability. People are inexplicable and incomprehensible, and nobody really knows what’s possible until they try. I prefer the exceptions to the rules. I like people who try, even when their chances are zero.

Whatever we may be or not be to others, to ourselves we are always just ourselves.

The only measure of judging a human being is through that person’s character, because character is not determined by race, religion, gender or social status. And one who recognizes this simple fact of human life behaves the same with the scientist, the janitor and the sex-worker.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

One of the biggest challenges for people involved in interfaith dialogue is to break down the stereotypes of the "other" that exist within their own religious traditions and groups. Religious groups need to first acknowledge and confess their own role in fostering and contributing to injustice and conflict. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 49)

You can't always expect people to apply your wisdom when they didn't use wisdom before they found themselves knee deep in their version of justice.

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

Let them learn at school whatever they learn to pass the examinations, but at home let the education that you provide be the kind that widens their perceptions and takes away the germs of prejudices that infect them while they are out in the world.

Moreover, in conversations with women, men do most of the talking (Haas, 1979), and despite hackneyed stereotypes about women being more talkative than men, we're apparently used to this pattern. When people listen to record-ings of conversations, they think it's more disrespectful and assertive for a woman to interrupt a m~ than vice versa (Lafrance, 1992).

You can't compare men or women with mental disorders to the normal expectations of men and women in without mental orders. Your dealing with symptoms and until you understand that you will always try to find sane explanations among insane behaviors. You will always have unreachable standards and disappointments. If you want to survive in a marriage to someone that has a disorder you have to judge their actions from a place of realistic expectations in regards to that person's upbringing and diagnosis.

[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behaviour. Not only one or two ... but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators – it would take too long to mention their names – it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realise how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behaviour and character of women.

Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured.

It takes a lot of confidence, and self-love and self-worth to realize that you are capable. And that you have every right to leave your lane, and to do things in the same way that other people do.

When you meet someone, and you find that they are prejudiced against your kind, it might be your chance, not to confirm, but to be the one to finally change their mind.

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.

We hold all people to unspoken rules about who and how they should be, how they should think, and what the should say. We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes.

What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.

Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?

If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots.

[T]he enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has splintered them away from other Americans. This fracture comes with a steep price: in today's toxic atmosphere, liberals are no less cynical, shortsighted, and parochial than anyone else, and they understand their fellow-Americans just as badly as they themselves are understood. When liberals look at red-state voters, they see either a mob of pious know-nothings or the insensible victims of militarism and class warfare. Yet.... [such people] defy fixed categories, which means that they have to be figured out the hard way--on their own terms.

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.

In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz: (...) that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.

The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]?

It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.

[T]he more clamour we make about 'the women's point of view', the more we rub it into people that the women's point of view is different, and frankly I do not think it is -- at least in my job. The line I always want to take is, that there is the 'point of view' of the reasonably enlightened human brain, and that this is the aspect of the matter which I am best fitted to uphold.

My Lady, you certainly tell me about wonderful constancy, strength and virtue and firmness of women, so can one say the same thing about men? (...)Response [by Lady Rectitude]: "Fair sweet friend, have you not yet heard the saying that the fool sees well enough a small cut in the face of his neighbour, but he disregards the great gaping one above his own eye? I will show you the great contradiction in what the men say about the changeability and inconstancy of women. It is true that they all generally insist that women are very frail [= fickle] by nature. And since they accuse women of frailty, one would suppose that they themselves take care to maintain a reputation for constancy, or at the very least, that the women are indeed less so than they are themselves. And yet, it is obvious that they demand of women greater constancy than they themselves have, for they who claim to be of this strong and noble condition cannot refrain from a whole number of very great defects and sins, and not out of ignorance, either, but out of pure malice, knowing well how badly they are misbehaving. But all this they excuse in themselves and say that it is in the nature of man to sin, yet if it so happens that any women stray into any misdeed (of which they themselves are the cause by their great power and longhandedness), then it's suddenly all frailty and inconstancy, they claim. But it seems to me that since they do call women frail, they should not support that frailty, and not ascribe to them as a great crime what in themselves they merely consider a little defect.

Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith – It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner...

There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.

Wine and women make wise men dote and forsake God's law and do wrong." However, the fault is not in the wine, and often not in the woman. The fault is in the one who misuses the wine or the woman or other of God's crations. Even if you get drunk on the wine and through this greed you lapse into lechery, the wine is not to blame but you are, in being unable or unwilling to discipline yourself. And even if you look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin [= adultery; extramarital sex], the woman is not to blame nor is the beauty given her by God to be disparaged: rather, you are to blame for not keeping your heart more clear of wicked thoughts. ... If you feel yourself tempted by the sight of a woman, control your gaze better ... You are free to leave her. Nothing constrains you to commit lechery but your own lecherous heart.

Now say, have women worth, or have they none? Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone? Nay Masculines, you have thus tax’d us long, But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. Let such as say our sex is void of reason Know ‘tis a slander now, but once was tre

In particular, husbands and wives who do poorly at nonverbal communication tend to be dissatisfied with their marriages. Moreover, when such problems occur, it's usually the husband's fault .In the first ingenious study of this sort, Patricia Noller (1980) found thathusbands in unhappy marriages sent more confusing messages and made more decoding errors than happy husbands did. There were no such differences among the wives, so the poorer communication Noller observed in the distressed marriages appeared to be the husbands' fault. Men in troubled marriages were misinterpreting communications from their wives that were clearly legible to total strangers.Even worse, such husbands were completely clueless about their mistakes; they assumed that they were doing a fine job communicating with their wives, and were confident that they understood their wives and that their wives understood them. The men were doing a poor job communicating and didn't know it, and that's why they seemed to be at fault.

A woman should be like water, able to flow over and around anything.

What'll Geoffrey do when you pull off your First, my child?" demanded Miss Ha

We could choose to celebrate our differences, rather than over-analyze them. This might help us become more realistic about the generalizations to which we subscribe. For example, consider this. If women are the overemotional ones, why do so many bar fights break out between men? Such brawls do not spring from logical, calm places.

Women, for their part, are always complaining that we raise them only to be vain and coquettish, that we keep them amused with trifles so that we may more easily remain their masters; they blame us for the faults we attribute to them. What stupidity! And since when is it men who concern themselves with the education of girls? Who is preventing the mothers from raising them as they please? There are no schools for girls—what a tragedy! Would God, there were none for boys! They would be raised more sensibly and more straightforwardly. Is anyone forcing your daughters to waste their time on foolish trifles? Are they forced against their will to spend half their lives on their appearance, following your example? Are you prevented from instructing them, or having them instructed according to your wishes? Is it our fault if they please us when they are beautiful, if their airs and graces seduce us, if the art they learn from you attracts and flatters us, if we like to see them tastefully attired, if we let them display at leisure the weapons with which they subjugate us? Well then, decide to raise them like men; the men will gladly agree; the more women want to resemble them, the less women will govern them, and then men will truly be the masters.

Ask a woman if she’s ambitious and she’ll look at you as if you just asked whether she sticks pins in puppies for fun. Ask a woman if she’s competitive and she’ll look at you as if you suggested that she’s a hooker.

[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.

Why do you consult [women's] words when it is not their mouths that speak? Consult their eyes, their colour, their breathing, their timid manner, their slight resistance, that is the language nature gave them for your answer. The lips always say 'No,' and rightly so; but the tone is not always the same, and that cannot lie. Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make them known? Her fate would be too cruel if she had no language in which to express her legitimate desires except the words which she dare not utter.

Every leader attracts a different type of follower from the left or the right, from the lowest or the highest class. Every leader unwittingly attracts certain stereotypes that fuel their underlying agenda.

... once you start demonizing groups of people, when you make them the other, you can justify doing just about anything you want to the, can't you? Look at history if you don't believe me.

The people we find truly anathema are the ones who reduce the past to caricature and distortit to fit their own bigoted stereotypes. We’ve gone to events that claimed to be historic fashionshows but turned out to be gaudy polyester parades with no shadow of reality behind them. Aswe heard our ancestors mocked and bigoted stereotypes presented as facts, we felt like we hadgone to an event advertised as an NAACP convention only to discover it was actually a minstrelshow featuring actors in blackface. Some so-called “living history” events really are that bigoted.When we object to history being degraded this way, the guilty parties shout that they are “justhaving fun.” What they are really doing is attacking a past that cannot defend itself. Perhapsthey are having fun, but it is the sort of fun a schoolyard brute has at the expense of a child whogoes home bruised and weeping. It’s time someone stood up for the past.I have always hated bullies. The instinct to attack difference can be seen in every socialspecies, but if humans truly desire to rise above barbarism, then we must cease acting like beasts.The human race may have been born in mud and ignorance, but we are blessed with mindssufficiently powerful to shape our behavior. Personal choices form the lives of individuals; thesum of all interactions determine the nature of societies.At present, it is politically fashionable in America to tolerate limited diversity based aroundrace, religion, and sexual orientation, yet following a trend does not equate with being trulyopen-minded. There are people who proudly proclaim they support women’s rights, yet have anappallingly limited definition of what those rights entail. (Currently, fashionable privileges arevoting, working outside the home, and easy divorce; some people would be dumbfounded at theidea that creating beautiful things, working inside the home, and marriage are equally desirablerights for many women.) In the eighteenth century, Voltaire declared, “I disagree with what yousay but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”3 Many modern Americans seem to haveperverted this to, “I will fight to the death for your right to agree with what I say.”When we stand up for history, we are in our way standing up for all true diversity. When wequestion stereotypes and fight ignorance about the past, we force people to question ignorance ingeneral.

The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a “good” marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience when we fail to pull it off.

I am living in world full of lost hope and discrimination. I am living a life in which social equality does not exist and I am not sure that it ever can, or if once upon a time it ever did.

American can mean anything you want it to mean. It can mean that you live in America. It can mean that you are privileged. Being American can also mean that you are diverse. In many ways, the title American is an oxymoron because one may look it on the outside but not feel it on the inside.

My skin is beautiful but it also serves as a huge barrier for so many opportunities that I want to pursue in life.

It’s unfortunate really—how everyone can live on the same soil yet not even know the first thing about their neighbors.

Differences simply act as a yarn of curiosity unraveling until we get to the other side.

In many ways, the title American is an oxymoron because one may look it on the outside but not feel it on the inside.

Sometimes, the reason that people don’t get along is because they feel that their role is to be selfish or submissive—not understanding that American simply means understanding who we are so that we can help others do the same.

Reality tries to disguise the fact that this society neglects to provide equal opportunity established by God and clarified in the Constitution. Whether equal opportunity is given to an individual or not, he/she still has the equal potential within him/herself to advance and obtain a greater level of success.

Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.

Cultures produce myths because they satisfy a deep-rooted human need: the need to make sense of life. Myths are appealing because they reduce the complexity of experience, by making things seem simple and absolute; myths define popular realities which are accepted readily, even uncritically.

From time to time I try to imagine this world of which he spoke--a culture in whose mythology words might be that precious, in which words were conceived as vessels for communications from the heart; a society in which words are holy, and the challenge of life is based upon the quest for gentle words, holy words, gentle truths, holy truths. I try to imagine for myself a world in which the words one gives one's children are the shell into which they shall grow, so one chooses one's words carefully, like precious gifts, like magnificent gifts, like magnificent inheritances, for they convey an excess of what we have imagined, they bear gifts beyond imagination, they reveal and revisit the wealth of history. How carefully, how slowly, and how lovingly we might step into our expectations of each other in such a world.

When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?

I am all things, I am not your words. I am defined by me.

There is nothing innate, immutable or inevitable about boys or girls doing particularly well or badly in different subjects. Girls in Shanghai outperform western boys in math, the same boys that outshine the girls in the US. The variable factor is the educational system, the society and the parents.

Don't tell me I'm "too tall" just because my height happens to threaten your rather fragile sense of masculinity. The fact that men cannot physically look down upon women who are taller than them is the very reason that many men find tall women so intimidating.

Centuries of social conditioning has created a generational fear among women of being perceived as masculine.This is where all the shaming and labels come into play, which perpetuate the oppression of girls and women. As a society we shame girls with deep voices or masculine features and we shame boys with soft voices or effeminate gestures. Girls get called "too manly" and boys get called "too girly". The only solution I can think of is to be unashamedly "you". If that means challenging stereotypes and gender norms, go right ahead!

I didn't think she was that kind of girl." I scampered up onto the ledge and strained to listen. "I overheard two of my students talking about her in homeroom yesterday. I never would have thought Natalie would do something like that. Then again, she's been acting out big-time. Fraternizing with that Spencer girl." I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning. What would have ever made me think that teachers wouldn't hear about this, too? After all, it was all over the school. Another teacher agreed. "Natalie always seemed like such a nice g

I know, I know, I'm being a girl.

A lot of people call you a feminist painter.""What indeed," I say. "I hate party lines, I hate ghettos. Anyway. I'm too old to have invented it and you're too young to understand it, so what's the point of discussing it at all?

The Poison Maiden has conceived by him, and is plumb ready to enter the divine category of mother, only one last fiend clubs her to death. The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catharine in A Farewell to Arms, or the Grecian Urn, the 'tension that she be perfect' means that she must die, leavinf the hero's status as a great lover unchallenged. The pattern is still commonplace: the hero cannot marry. The sexual exploit must be conquest, not cohabitation and mutual tolerance.

Stenham had always taken it for granted that the dichotomy of belief and behavior was the cornerstone of the Moslem world. It was too deep to be called hypocrisy; it was merely custom. They said one thing and they did something else. They affirmed their adherence to Islam in formulated phrases, but they behaved as though they believed, and actually did believe, something quite different. Still, the unchanging profession of faith was there, and to him it was this eternal contradiction which made them Moslems. But Amar’s relationship to his religion was far more robust: he believed it possible to practice literally what the Koran enjoined him to profess. He kept the precepts constantly in his hand, and applied them on every occasion, at every moment. The fact that such a person as Amar could be produced by this society rather upset Stenham’s calculations. For Stenham, the exception invalidated the rule instead of proving it: if there were one Amar, there could be others. Then the Moroccans were not the known quantity he had thought they were, inexorably conditioned by the pressure of their own rigid society; his entire construction was false in consequence, because it was too simple and did not make allowances for individual variations.

Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor lead enviable lives -- envied, that is, by work-driven, sensually inhibted, less corruptly governed northerners. We are superior to them, say the northerners, clearly superior. We do not shirk our duties or tell lies as a matter of course, we work hard, we are punctual, we keep reliable accounts. But they have more fun than we do ... They caution[ed] themselves as people do who know they are part of a superior culture: we mustn't let ourselves go, mustn't descend to the level of the ... jungle, street, bush, bog, hills, outback (take your pick). For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book, developing a sense of rhythm, making love whenever you feel like it -- then you know. The south has got you.

I become quite melancholy and deeply grieved to see men behave to each other as they do. Everywhere I find nothing but base flattery, injustice , self-interest, deceit and roguery. I cannot bear it any longer; I'm furious; and my intention is to break with all mankind.

There is nothing I detest so much as the contortions of these great time-and-lip servers, these affable dispensers of meaningless embraces, these obliging utterers of empty words, who view every one in civilities

The future lies in unity and respect, not division and stereotypes

The prediction of false rape-related beliefs (rape myth acceptance [RMA]) was examined using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Payne, Lonsway, & Fitzgerald, 1999) among a nonclinical sample of 258 male and female college students. Predictor variables included measures of attitudes toward women, gender role identity (GRI), sexual trauma history, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. Using linear regression and testing interaction effects, negative attitudes toward women significantly predicted greater RMA for individuals without a sexual trauma history.However, neither attitudes toward women nor GRI were significant predictors of RMA for individuals with a sexual trauma history."Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexual Trauma History, and Posttraumatic Stress DisorderShannon N. Baugher, PhD,Jon D. Elhai, PhD,James R. Monroe, PhD, Ruth Dakota, Matt J. Gray, PhD

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

Never trust an Italian. The Nazis did that, and look where it got them.

The mind is part of the body, not separate, and we must take care of our bodies and listen to them. Develop your mind and body, make goals and reach them. But have “no mind” when experiencing and learning. You will be more open to what is happening rather than fitting everything into stereotypes and preconceptions.

If someone's a racist, punch them in the mouth so they will be sadder, and therefore less likely to stereotype. (Even if Fargas's theory is flawed, on the upside, at least you've punched a racist in the mouth.)

You could say I’m so manly I don’t even allow manly stereotypes to influence my actions

Quaint and picturesque, though I didn't voice my opinion out loud. Keirran and Annwyl were faeries, and Kenzie was a girl, so it was okay for them to notice such things. as a card-carrying guy club, I wasn't going to comment on the floral arrangements.

In this chapter I restrict myself to exploring the nature of the amnesia which is reported between personality states in most people who are diagnosed with DID. Note that this is not an explicit diagnostic criterion, although such amnesia features strongly in the public view of DID, particularly in the form of the fugue-like conditions depicted in films of the condition, such as The Three Faces of Eve (1957). Typically, when one personality state, or ‘alter’, takes over from another, they have no idea what happened just before. They report having lost time, and often will have no idea where they are or how they got there. However, this is not a universal feature of DID. It happens that with certain individuals with DID, one personality state can retrieve what happened when another was in control. In other cases we have what is described as ‘co-consciousness’ where one personality state can apparently monitor what is happening when another personality state is in control and, in certain circumstances, can take over the conversation.

Regard for the past only extends to its outward forms.

With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical – not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery].- Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)

Ifemelu would also come to learn that, for Kimberly, the poor were blameless. Poverty was a gleaming thing; she could not conceive of poor people being vicious or nasty because their poverty had canonized them, and the greatest saints were the foreign poor.

Never stand in the way of letting God use people’s actions, in order to solve a greater issue in the world.

Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true—in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals.

white is not always light and black is not always dark.

It is only when we are in the habit of recognizing our opinions as a partial experience seen through our stereotypes that we become truly tolerant of an opponent.

If you can't see past my name, you can't see me.

By focusing on her career and taking a calculated approach to amassing power, Heidi violated our stereotypical expectations of women. Yet by behaving in the same manner, Howard lived up to our stereotypical expectations of men. The end result? Liked him, disliked her.

Are boys encouraged to express sadness, fear, or anxiety? In general, our society gives boys permission for one emotion: anger. If a boy is hurt or upset, he may be comforted briefly, but then he is told to stop crying and "be a man." This message usually implies he should hide his feelings. Boys and men are supposed to be solid unemotional rocks. Demonstrations of emotions are seen as "silly." Anger is seen as a sign of strength. Males are considered to be standing up for their rights if they react to a frustrating or undesirable event with anger. Outrage is often the only reaction to an injustice that is allowed from boys.

I met a woman who told me she wasn't attracted to Asians. No worries, I said. I'm not attracted to racists.

It's shameful for a devil to be good.

Whatever we may be or seem to others, to ourselves we are always just ourselves

The idea of reappropriation isn’t a new one. The process of turning negative words, symbols, or ideas into positive parts of our own identity – was used for social justice movements long before hipsters thought that being ironic was cool. Whether it is repurposing a racial epithet or taking on a stereotype for sociopolitical empowerment, it’s an important process that has been around for thousands of years and continues to change society today.

Today, many of us are trying to understand just what male and female energies are, since we are calling old rigid stereotypes into questions. There is a risk of replacing such stereotypes with even more politically correct rigid stereotypes. The destructive aspect of the masculine has been emphasized in recent years, but both the feminine and the masculine have destructive sides. (The evil witch in fairy tales is an example of the destructive feminine.) Love is the ultimate nature of everything; it is not just the feminine that is loving. We tend to think of female energy as nurturing because it is undirected—it includes everything—but perhaps one could say that the feminine loves and nurtures in a being way, and the masculine does so in a doing way. We are each capable of loving in both ways.

The true champions of a nation's freedom are those who reject the limitations of stereotypes and affirm the rich diversity of human nature to be found.

What constitutes the character of a nation is the character of many individual human beings; every national character is in essence, simply human nature. All the worlds nations, therefore, have a great deal in common with one another. The foundation of any national character is human nature. The foundation of national character is simply a particular colouring taken on by human nature, a particular crystallisation of it.

Having the liberty to have freedom of choice is the greatest thing that each and everyone of us has because that makes us who we are. Do not however use this as an excuse to discriminate, segregate and stereotype mass amounts of people on the basis of a small group of individuals who have either the power or the spotlight to do bad things

Like most guys, I had bought into the stereotype that all feminists were white, lesbian, unattractive male bashers who hated all men. But after reading the work of these black feminists, I realized that this was far from the truth. After digging into their work, I came to really respect the intelligence, courage and honesty of these women.Feminists did not hate men. In fact, they loved men. But just as my father had silenced my mother during their arguments to avoid hearing her gripes, men silenced feminists by belittling them in order to dodge hearing the truth about who we are.

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.

Do you drink?""Of course,I just said I was a writer.

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in!

The breakdown of mummies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle...For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which we loathed in straight society. It was the rejection of these roles that had drawn us to 'the life' in the first place. Instinctively, without particular theory or political position or dialectic, we recognized oppression as oppression, no matter where it came from.But those lesbians who had carved some niche in the pretend world of dominance/subordination rejected what they called our 'confused' lifestyle, and they were in the majority.

Confession time: I doubt I would ever have picked up one of Marjorie’s books, had I not met her in person. The reason is they’re categorized as Romances, which is where they are shelved in bookstores. Though I have no justification for avoiding it, the romance section is an area in bookstores I seldom wander into. Her novels also have traditional-looking romance book covers, which are occasionally a bit off-putting to us mighty manly men. Then again, who knows? I don’t carry many biases where good storytelling is concerned. I’m willing to find it anywhere, as too many of my friends will attest, when I try to drag them to wonderful movies that they aren’t eager to go to, simply because they fall under the chick-flick rubric. So, in any case, I’m glad I did meet Marjorie Liu in person, because it would have been a shame to miss out on the work of an author this talented due to whatever degree of cultural prejudices I might still possess. I trust you who read this won’t make the same mistake.

Sexual distortions carry strong undertones of prejudice—sexism, racism and homophobia—that rob individuals of their individuality. Common stereotypes include “men are all dogs,” “women are less interested in sex,” “gays are promiscuous,” certain races are frigid or hung, and certain sex acts are indulgent, effeminate, or immoral. Other distortions clearly function as tools of organizations or of religious or political figures to shape public opinion through dogma and to control their followers’ lives.

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.

A stereotype is not a stereotype if it's true.

Reducing a group to a slur or stereotype reduces us all.

Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.

I met a woman who told me that she wasn't attracted to Asians. "No worries," I said. "I'm not attracted to racists

What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation's leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity - and true freedom - be achieved.It is the struggle for freedom of thought and expression, the struggle for a peasant's freedom to sow what he wants to sow, for everyone's freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own work - this is the true struggle for national dignity.The only real triumph of national freedom is one that brings about the triumph of all human freedom.For small nations and large nations alike, this is the only way forward.And it goes without saying that the Russians too - as well as Armenians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Uzbeks - must understand that it is precisely through renouncing the idea of their own national superiority that they can truly affirm the grandeur and dignity of their own people, of their own literature and science.

One night, I was out driving with a few friends of mine when the police pulled us over. We were told we fit the description of someone who had committed a robbery or stolen a car, though I don't really know what kind of description that could have been: three black kids in a Hyundai blasting U2's Joshua Tree on their way back from Bible study?

I believe it’s incredibly important to write against [racial] stereotypes. If we give in and make sure that all black women characters are asexual, gentle, and kind we wind up with another set of stereotypes.

People make mistakes. They look at the surface of things and see what they want to.

Today someone asked me if that old stereotype about hot-headed Italians is true. I answered this way: About 2,000 years ago, there was a guy running around hollering about peace & love ... and we nailed his ass to a cross! (Hope that answers your fuckin' question!)

If you’re struggling to fit me into a box……. Then build a bigger box!

In my life, I have been told that as a gay man I am a threat to the American family. I have been told that to accept me as an equal is an insult to God. I have been told that I am no better than a pedophile. I have been told that I cannot serve in the military because my presence will undermine unit cohesion. I have had bottles thrown at me when I gathered with others to protest for marriage equality. I have been told that I am sick, that I am damaged, and that I am damage and sickness incarnate.Let the record show that what finally made me snap is the suggestion that I was supposed to have chemistry with Tori Spelling.

There is nothing mixed up about a woman who loves women, who wants to have sex with them, or who identifies as a lesbian. It is society that is mixed up because it punishes people for not conforming to its gender stereotypes.

There’s a tremendous need to implode the myths of mental illness, to put a face on it, to show people that a diagnosis does not have to lead to a painful and oblique life....We who struggle with these disorders can lead full, happy, productive lives, if we have the right resources.

1 in 5 people have dandruff. 1 in 4 people have mental health problems. I've had both.

The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy.

Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32)."World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illnessPATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON

I'm not the kind of person who likes to shout out my personal issues from the rooftops, but with my bipolar becoming public, I hope fellow sufferers will know it's completely controllable. I hope I can help remove any stigma attached to it, and that those who don't have it under control will seek help with all that is available to treat it.

Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32). Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33):- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities;- authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others;- benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for.- Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36).

the stigma of severe mental illness leads to prejudice and discrimination. Stigmas are negative and erroneous attitudes about these persons. Unfortunately, stigma's impact on a person's life may be as harmful as the direct effects of the disease.Corrigan, P. W., & Penn, D. L. (1999). Lessons from social psychology on discrediting psychiatric stigma. American Psychologist, 54(9), 765–776.

Public stigma Stereotype Negative belief about a group (e.g., dangerousness, incompetence, character weakness)Prejudice Agreement with belief and/or negative emotional reaction (e.g., anger, fear)Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., avoidance, withhold employment and housing opportunities, withhold help)Self-stigma Stereotype Negative belief about the self (e.g., character weakness, incompetence)Prejudice Agreement with belief, negative emotional reaction (e.g., low self-esteem, low self-efficacy)Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., fails to pursue work and housing opportunities)Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. Feb 2002; 1(1): 16–20.PMCID: PMC1489832

It is my deepest desire to share the worlds of people we don’t often see or read about in media. With my writing I seek to introduce you to the worlds I’ve always known existed around me and within me.

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.

Here I want to stress that perception of losing one’s mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the anxiety consequent upon this perception of oneself, and the strategies devised to reduce this anxiety, are not a product of abnormal psychology, but would be exhibited by any person socialized into our culture who came to conceive of himself as someone losing his mind.

We play into the definitions and stereotypes others impose on us and accept the model-minority myth, thinking it's positive, but it's a trap just like any stereotype. They put a piece of model-minority cheese between the metal jaws of their mousetrap, but we're lactose intolerant anyway! We can't even eat the cheese.

I hate gender stereotypes like girls love princesses and boys like guns. . . my point is that tying particular behaviors and interests to particular gender seems to be the major reason guys who like dance get called names.

I notice you didn’t include a blade with your new attire,” Royce said. “Not even a little jeweled dagger.”“Lords no.” Albert looked appalled. “I don’t fight.”“I thought all nobles learned sword fighting.” Royce looked to Hadrian.“I thought so too.”“Nobles with competent fathers perhaps. I spent my formative years at my aunt’s at Huffington Manor. She held a daily salon, where a dozen noble ladies came to discuss all manner of philosophical topics, like how much they hated their husbands. I’ve never actually held a sword, but I can tie a mean corset and apply face paint like a gold-coin whore.

Are you bisexual""Labels were invented for people like you who can't grasp a reality outside of a defined gender role. I like what i like.

Reality confounds image.

Was it love or wasn't it that she felt for Carol? And how absurd it was that she didn't even know. She had heard about girls falling in love, and she knew what kind of people they were and what they looked like. Neither she nor Carol looked like that. Yet the way she felt about Carol passed all the tests for love and fitted all the descriptions.

If a man fears dogs, he may beat one with a stick when he sees it. As is the nature of all creatures, that dog will bite him. And then he may tell everyone that he was right about dogs, that they are evil. But I ask you, who is at fault in this scenario, the man or the dog?

He was not talking with US, but with his IMAGE of us.

I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively.

I'm just tired of people judging me because I fit into a certain mold.

People were clueless. Allthey ever went by was appearance and rumor.

TR on using extramarital accusations against Wilson: "It won't work. You can't cast a man as Romeo who looks and acts like an apothecary's clerk.

The artist and the politician stand at opposite poles. The artist enhances life by his prolonged concentration upon it, while the politician emphasizes the impersonal aspect of life by his attempts to fit men into groups.

Because if you don't know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks... But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find just that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires.

I'm Irish yet I don't drink as I refuse to be a stereotype and live down to the expectations of others.

Nowadays I’m really cranky about comics. Because most of them are just really, really poorly written soft-core. And I miss good old storytelling. And you know what else I miss? Super powers. Why is it now that everybody’s like “I can reverse the polarity of your ions!” Like in one big flash everybody’s Doctor Strange. I like the guys that can stick to walls and change into sand and stuff. I don’t understand anything anymore. And all the girls are wearing nothing, and they all look like they have implants. Well, I sound like a very old man, and a cranky one, but it’s true.

Whedon: Studios will tell you: A woman cannot headline an action movie. After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it’s done a great service. And after The Avengers, I think it’s changing.Johansson: A lot of the female superhero movies just suck really badly.Whedon: The suck factor is not small.Johansson: They are really not well made, and already you’re fighting against the tide. There are a couple [female-driven action movies] that have worked-ish, don’t you think?Hemsworth: Angelina Jolie tends to do it pretty well, as the dominant female.Jackson: They got to get The Pro to the screen!Whedon: [Groaning] See, that is the problem. Sam is the problem!Jackson: I love that book!Whedon: [Reluctantly] The Pro is hilarious.Jackson: The Pro’s hilarious. [To the group] You ever see or hear of it?Johansson: No, what’s The Pro?Jackson: It’s [a comic book] about a hooker who gets super powers!Johansson: [Pauses] That is exactly the problem right there.Whedon: That’s why I wasn’t going to bring up The Pro!(From an Entertainment Weekly interview)

Each man had come to know the other's caricature as a lie.

SummaryThere is a small group of cases, initially treated as rape where there is no evidence of an assault: primarily where a third party makes the report and the victim subsequently denies; or where the victim suspects being assaulted while asleep, unconscious or affected by alcohol/drugs but the medical/forensic examination suggests no sex has taken place. How the police should designate such cases is problematic.- Eight per cent of reported cases in the sample were designated false by the police.- A higher proportion of cases designated false involved 16- to 25-year-olds.- A greater degree of acquaintance between victim and perpetrator decreased the likelihood of cases being designated false.- Cases were most commonly designated false on the grounds of: the complainantadmitting it; retractions; evidential issues; and non co-operation by the complainant.- In a number of cases the police also cited mental health problems, previous allegations, use of alcohol/drugs and lack of CCTV evidence.- The pro formas and the interviews with police officers suggested inconsistencies in the complainant’s account could be interpreted as ‘lying’.- The authors’ analysis suggests that the designation of false allegations in a number of cases was uncertain according to Home Office counting rules, and if these were excluded, would reduce the proportion of false complaints to three per cent of reported cases.- This is considerably lower than the estimates of police officers interviewed."A gap or a chasm?: attrition in reported rape cases.

Just watch any husband arguing with his wife about something insignificant; listen to what they say and watch how their residual emotions manifest when the fight is over. It’s so formulaic and unsurprising that you wouldn’t dare re-create it in a movie. All the critics would mock it. They’d all say the screenwriter was a hack who didn’t even try. This is why movies have less value than we like to pretend — movies can’t show reality, because honest depictions of reality offend intelligent people.

I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically. A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.[From a 1986 Fangoria interview]

I try to stay fit and eat healthily, but I am not anxious to starve myself and become unnaturally thin. I don’t find that look attractive on women and I don’t want to become part of that trend. It’s unhealthy and it puts too much pressure on women in general who are being fed this image of the ideal, which it is not. I think America has become obsessed with dieting rather than focusing on eating well, exercising and living a healthy life. I also think that being ultra-thin is not sexy at all. Women shouldn’t be forced to conform to unrealistic and unhealthy body images that the media promote. I don’t need to be skinny to be sexy.