Men and Masculinity Quotes in The World According to Garp

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

At the hospital she saw more soldier and working boys than college men [...] Then, suddenly, everyone was a soldier—and full of the self-importance of college boys—and Jenny Fields stopped having anything to do with men. (1.5)

Jenny is disgusted by the sheer amount of privilege that men have and how comfortably they seem to lay claim to it.

Quote #2

Finally, things were cleared up when the police discovered that the soldier was from New York where he had a wife and child. He had taken a leave in Boston and [...] he feared the story would get back to his wife. Everyone seemed to agree that would be awful. (1.49)

Oh no, the bad part isn't that this guy sexually harassed Jenny—it's that his wife might find out. Now if that's not a double standard, then we don't know what is.

Quote #3

If Jenny thought of men at all, and she never really did, she thought they were more tolerable when they were small and neat, and she preferred mean and women to have muscles—to be strong. (3.77)

Jenny actually has a lot of respect for manly men. Real men aren't the ones degrading women, after all—it takes someone with a deep well of insecurity to do that.