Michelle Dean Quotes

Female-driven shows have to be every single thing and are constantly criticized in a way that male-driven shows are not.

People put stock in someone being in a 'girl group,' but we don't say that a band is a 'man group.'

What works for a man, still does not work for a woman - both in terms of how they see themselves and how we see them.

Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else.

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.

Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'

A woman today is good, or she is bad, according to the way she does a thing - and not because of the thing itself.

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.

You come across words all the time that are everyday sexism. I was described as 'competently bossy' and 'bossily competent' by a male journalist, and I thought, 'Gosh, 'bossy' is never used of a man.'

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

One of the sad commentaries on the way women are viewed in our society is that we have to fit one category. I have never felt that I had to be in one category.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

Women become invisible as they age; men become impotent.

Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?

A man can add to his sexuality by being funny, whereas a woman can diminish hers. I don't know why that's the case: it's completely unfair.

The way my body is viewed in the world is different than a male body. People are going to write about the performance, but they're probably also going to be writing about what I was wearing or my hair, which just doesn't happen to men.

Patriarchy doesn't just make men out to be ogres. Women buy into the patriarchy as well, and women make those comments as well, like, 'Boys will be boys.' Women have to undo that stuff, too.

I really feel like females have to go 50 extra miles. Not just one - 50 extra miles to be accepted or taken seriously.

'Desperate Housewives' - there's no man on the planet that takes that personally, but if it were 'Desperate Househusbands,' they would shut ABC down.

Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.

It's acceptable for men to act the fool. When women try, they're considered aggressive and opinionated.

I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.

Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men-they want to wrap women up in a neat little package.

Men are allowed to write songs about people and women are allowed to write songs about women.