Deborah Tannen Quotes

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose.

Little girls as children, I think, are expected to behave better. If a boy's naughty at school, he's a little bit cheeky and mischievous. If a girl's naughty, she's trouble.

Men can't bear to see women cry.

Especially with girls, people always want to put them in little brackets.

Boys are so much drama.

Women in leadership cannot cry without raising a storm of commentary.

In our cultural history, all emotions have been more culturally acceptable to women.

Women are often expected to be more amiable or more pleasing or more submissive than men generally.

People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.

Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women.

A woman can laugh and cry in three seconds and it's not weird. But if a man does it, it's very disturbing. The way I'd describe it is like this: I have been allowed inside the house of womanhood, but I feel that they wouldn't let me in any of the interesting rooms.

As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do.

You would never say to a man, 'do you like playing strong men?' You just wouldn't say that.

While the requirements of a good leader and a good man are similar, the requirements of a good leader and a good woman are mutually exclusive. A good leader must be tough, but a good woman must not be. A good woman must be self-deprecating, but a good leader must not be.

There are certain expectations placed on writers if other people have put a value on their gender. I'm aware of the hundreds of tiny differences that happen when people are seeing your gender before they see something else.

We're not accustomed to giving women the space to express the full range of emotions and flaws that men are permitted. Anger and aggressiveness aren't part of the scale of what is acceptable behavior in women, whereas men - in reality and in fiction - are allowed a much fuller range of emotion.

It's easy for guys to listen to another guy for support, but if it's a female, they seem to shy away from it, like they don't want to be a sucker, you know what I'm saying? So we kind of got to go harder.

People try to make women a very specific thing so that we like them.

Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything - except anger.

As a woman, this is one of these areas where you have to walk a fine line: the classic, 'Are you soft and squishy, and you hug everybody, and you're a cheerleader?' versus, 'Are you the hard-nosed you-know-what female dog?'

Where anger can be seen as a relative positive in a man, it is hardly ever perceived as anything other than a negative in a woman.

I am far more pragmatic than the stereotype of the sex permits.

If you listen to the radio, it's all men who are emotional and women who are sexual. There's nothing wrong with that! It definitely should be the case, but it makes me sad that women are afraid to be emotional because it makes them look weak.

They always said to me that I needed to be more feminine. I think it's so wrong. Being boisterous doesn't mean you are not feminine.