Maureen Dowd Quotes

Do not vote for Hillary [Clinton] because she is a woman. Ask yourself, who has done more for women so far and who will do more for women in the future - and then make your choice.

Hillary [Clinton] doesn't have a fascinating story to get behind. She doesn't fascinating story to tell. The only thing about Hillary is, you know, "first female president."

Even before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton threw their exploratory committees into the ring, every reporter seemed to be asking, 'Which candidate are Americans more ready for: a white woman or a black man?'

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.”

An ocean of ink - real and virtual - has been spilled critiquing the appearance of female politicians.

I've had it with those women - women! - who seek to undermine the serious work of women in Israeli politics by describing them as 'attractive and elegant' but utterly vacant.

I asked, "What do you think the most important advancement was for women in recent years?" And the majority, the item that polled the most, was Hillary Clinton's run for President. Can you believe that? Women saw that as a breakthrough in something very, very important. She didn't win. And I think another thing that her race did was it showed sexism in our society.

I don't face any particular problems as a woman president because I have been a professional for a long time. I keep telling people: I am a technocrat who happens to be a woman.

That seems to be a woman who is genuinely depressed that this is the political dialogue she [Hillary Clinton] is been thrown into in the 21st century in running for president of the United States.

I'm proud to be a woman running for president.

There are some women, we have to admit this, there's some women who support Hillary Clinton simply because they think it's great that a woman might be elected president for the first time.

It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub- woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is entirely within the charmed circle of woman's sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.

Hillary Clinton was urging voters to make history, but a lot of voters, particularly women, had trouble with her history. And she was portraying herself as a feminist, as a glass ceiling breaker, but, in fact, in the eyes of many women, especially women closer to Hillary Clinton's own age, she had gotten where she was primarily on her husband's coattails.

Are Republican women politicians more 'feminine' than Democratic women politicians?

The whole sex symbol or babe thing doesn't bother me.

Films about women and their concerns are seen as frivolous, limited and, most damaging of all, niche.

Sexual harassment law is very important. But I think it would be a mistake if the sexual harassment law movement is the only way in which feminism is known in the media.

I have spent my whole life trying to prove that women can get into politics. I'd now say to them, 'For God's sake don't do it - you'll get slaughtered.'

For some reason, men in politics seem to have a bunch of charisma, and women drop around their feet. I haven't noticed that so much for me and men.

I'm an actor, but I'm also a feminist, and a lot of times in movies there are things that I cannot imagine happening that are on the screen and totally accepted. And I just go, 'Whaaat?'

I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly.

I was in fact pretty much - by the larger culture, by the local culture, by people around me, by people on TV - encouraged to imagine women as something slightly inferior to men.

Is this the situation in the modern Conservative party? That women should be seen and not heard?

If being a woman is a factor politically, it's usually not because of a conscious bias, but because women are a novelty.

The very qualities that make it harder for women to get elected - not being part of the old boy's network - gives them the advantage of having fresh, and yes, clean faces.