How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I was moody, ill-at-ease, unhappy, and hard to be with. I didn't relish my breakfast. I spent my whole day combing my hair and putting on make-up. Other girls practiced with the shot-put and compared archery scores, but I—indifferent to javelin and crossbow, positively repelled by horticulture and ice hockey—all I did was
dress for The Man
smile for The Man
talk wittily to The Man
sympathize with The Man
flatter The Man
understand The Man
defer to The Man
entertain The Man
keep The Man
live for The Man. (3.1.2)
Through characters like Joanna, Jeannine, and Laura, The Female Man suggests that women need to take responsibility for sacrificing their own power. By choosing to live for The Man rather than for herself, Joanna contributes to her own subservience.
Quote #2
She learned, wearing her rimless glasses, that the world is full of intelligent, attractive, talented women who manage to combine careers with their primary responsibilities as wives and mothers and whose husbands beat them. (4.5.1)
As a young woman in a man's world, Laura Rose Wilding is desperate for female role models to look up to. But even the examples she finds of strong, successful women reiterate to her that women will always be vulnerable to men. Like Joanna's experience with the bookstore clerk who scolds her for purchasing The Subjection of Women, Laura's perspective suggests that, even if women acquire social status and economic independence, it will not be enough to shift the power relations between them and men.
Quote #3
Finding The Man. Keeping The Man. Not scaring The Man, building up The Man, pleasing The Man, interesting The Man, following The Man, soothing The Man, flattering The Man, deferring to The Man, changing your judgment for The Man, changing your decisions for The Man, polishing floors for The Man, being perpetually conscious of your appearance for The Man, being romantic for The Man, hinting to The Man, losing yourself in The Man. (4.11.1)
Like Joanna, Laura realizes that living for The Man will mean losing her own self. While the novel suggests that women do have some choice in these matters, it also argues that social conditioning is extremely hard to resist.
Quote #4
When I was thirteen my uncle wanted to kiss me and when I tried to run away, everybody laughed. He pinned my arms and kissed me on the cheek; then he said, "Oho, I got my kiss! I got my kiss!" and everybody thought it was too ducky for words. Of course they blamed me—it's harmless, they said, you're only a child, he's paying you attention, you ought to be grateful. Everything's all right as long as he doesn't rape you. (4.11.1)
This scene is clearly one of the formative moments in Laura's life. How is power distributed here? What kinds of power does her uncle exploit?
Quote #5
Then I had a lady shrink who said it was my problem because I was the one who was trying to rock the boat and you can't expect them to change. So I suppose I'm the one who must change. Which is what my best friend said. "Compromise," she said, answering her fiftieth phone call of the night. "Think what power it gives you over them." (4.11.5)
What kind of power would Laura gain by compromising with boys or men? How would it compare to the power that the menfolk enjoy?
Quote #6
Dunyasha Bernadetteson (the most brilliant mind in the world, b. A.C. 344, d. A.C. 426) heard of this unfortunate young person and immediately pronounced the following shchasnïy, or cryptic one-word saying:
"Power!" (4.12.1-2)
Dunyasha Bernadetteson was clearly a fan of The Temptations.
Quote #7
The game is a dominance game called I Must Impress This Woman. Failure makes the active player play harder. Wear a hunched back or a withered arm; you will then experience the invisibility of the passive player. I'm never impressed—no woman ever is—it's just a cue that you like me and I'm supposed to like that. If you really like me, maybe I can get you to stop. Stop; I want to talk to you! Stop; I want to see you! Stop; I'm dying and disappearing! (5.9.13)
Throughout The Female Man, Joanna/the omniscient narrator satirizes a number of "dominance games" that men in her world are taught to play. Although she knows that women are supposed to find male dominance attractive, this passage suggests that this kind of behavior is just as damaging and deadly as outward displays of violence.
Quote #8
Men succeed. Women get married.
Men fail. Women get married.
Men enter monasteries. Women get married.
Men start wars. Women get married.
Men stop them. Women get married.
Dull, dull. (see below) (6.8.1-6)
On Joanna's Earth, it's the men who start and stop wars, but in Jael's world, the women do too. Does the novel suggest that war is a valid expression of female power?
Quote #9
I'm a sick woman, a madwoman, a ball-breaker, a man-eater; I don't consume men gracefully with my fire-like red hair or my poisoned kiss; I crack their joints with these filthy ghoul's claws and standing on one foot like a de-clawed cat, rake at your feeble efforts to save yourselves with my taloned hinder feet: my matted hair, my filthy skin, my big fat plaques of green bloody teeth. (7.1.8)
Joanna sounds a lot like Jael here. Why is it that, in Joanna's world, women who have power (or want it) seem monstrous? Is Jael an effective parody of these stereotypes?
Quote #10
I raked him gaily on the neck and chin and when he embraced me in a rage, sank my claws into his back. You have to build up the fingers surgically so they'll take the strain. A certain squeamishness prevents me from using my teeth in front of witnesses—the best way to silence an enemy is to bite out his larynx. (8.8.94)
Jael is an assassin, but is violence her only strength? What other qualities give her power and make her good at what she does?