How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He expected me to start singing "I'm So Glad I'm A Girl" right there in his Goddamned office. And a little buck-and-wing. And a little n***** shuffle. (4.11.1)
This is one of the most inflammatory and contentious statements in The Female Man. Not only does Laura use a racial slur to make a point about sexism, but she also does it without offering any deeper analysis of the crucial differences between her experience as a white woman living in a patriarchal culture and the experience of a black man or woman living in a white supremacist society.
Quote #8
He: Darling, why must you work part-time as a rug salesman?
She: Because I wish to enter the marketplace and prove that in spite of my sex I can take a fruitful part in the life of the community and earn what our culture proposes as the sign and symbol of adult independence—namely money. (6.5.14-15)
This about sums it up. If money is "the sign and symbol of adult independence" in America, then, without being able to earn and keep money of her own, a woman cannot be treated as an independent adult. Instead, she can only be treated as Jeannine is treated by everyone in her world: as an overgrown child.
Quote #9
"Well, it's nobody's fault, I know (this is what I'm supposed to think). I know and totally approve and genuflect and admire and wholly obey the doctrine of Nobody's Fault, the doctrine of Gradual Change, the doctrine that Women Can Love Better Than Men so we ought to be saints (warrior saints?), the doctrine of It's A Personal Problem.
(Selah, selah, there is only one True Prophet and it's You, don't kill me, massa, I'se jes' ig'nerant.)" (7.5.9)
This is another of the novel's most inflammatory and contentious passages. Like Laura, Joanna draws a connection between women's oppression under patriarchy and the oppression of African peoples under white supremacy and, specifically, slavery. On top of that, she makes some not-so-subtle insinuations about Islam by relating Muslim believers' worship of Allah to the lip service women are expected to pay to men.