Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

Physical, emotional, psychological and social differences [between the sexes] exist and dare not be disregarded.

You should never be put into a mold based on your gender.

I think we're struggling with trying to redefine various positions at this point in history. To allow freedom for women, freedom for men, freedom from those sharply defined gender roles.

Girls can wear jeans, cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, 'cause it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading.

Feminism isn't about hating men. It's about challenging the absurd gender distinctions that boys and girls learn from childhood and carry into their adult lives.

We are people, individuals comprising a variety of sexes, races, shifting sexualities and all the rest of it. Every convention that tries to reinforce this difference is a step back. Notions of gender pointlessly separate men from women, but also mothers from daughters and fathers from sons.

The relative positions assumed by men and women were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence.

Inherent differences between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual’s opportunity.

I'd like to get to the point where I can be just as mediocre as a man.

I've never played on my gender.

I've always seen the world as very gender-neutral.

I think it is absurd to give such tremendous importance to the distinctions between men and women. When I meet someone I regard that person as a human being. I do not say "This is a man; this is a woman."

I think the differences between men and women, it's kind of hard to define what those are and the challenges, what they are. I think there are challenging things for everybody.

I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life! That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.

I never saw a ­distinction between a man and a woman. My ­grandparents and my mother were great examples of men and women, and they taught me ­equality. So I would fight with boys and wear my cousin's clothes. I would do whatever I wanted, and that's where I still stand today.

I would gladly admit women are superior to men if only they would stop trying to be the same as us.

I felt alien my whole life, but I didn't feel alien because of my gender. Other people made me aware of my gender.

You think that being a girl is degrading, but secretly, you'd love to know what it's like, wouldn't you?

When you write, you are not either sex. But when you're read you are definitely gendered.

To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.

I refuse to consign the whole male sex to the nursery. I insist on believing that some men are my equals.

No one knows 'men' as such, any more than anyone knows 'women,' and if they do generalise they're probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one 'man,' yes, or even lots of individual 'men'.

I grew up in a time when many people believed that men and women should not always be treated equally.

Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.

I don't believe in categorising a gender, as it makes for discord. People always say, 'That's what men are like' or, 'That's what women do'; I don't really feel that at all. I think that's because I have two fathers, three brothers, a husband and two sons. I'm surrounded by maleness, and I couldn't possibly summarise them into a type.