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.
Quote #4
Rape [...] was an act that disgusted him with himself—with his own very male instincts, which were otherwise so unassailable. He never felt like raping anyone: but rape, Garp thought, made men feel guilt by association. (7.212)
Although Garp isn't a sexual predator, he knows that he shares their same sexual drive. The only thing distinguishing them is Garp's ethics. Hold tight to those ethics, dude.
Quote #5
Once she had to tell him, "No! I don't like that, I won't do that." But she had added, "Please," because she wasn't that sure of him [...] It was exciting that she couldn't trust him completely. (13.58)
Many women get caught up with unsavory dudes because of the thrill. But the truth is that Michael is deeply insecure; he's overcompensating more than a Guy Fieri wearing a fedora in a Ferrari.
Quote #6
A woman half dressed seemed to have some power, but a man was simply not as handsome as when he was naked, and not as secure as when he was clothed. (13.235)
Men get their power from society—after all, they've set things up so they usually end up winning. If you strip them of that, however, then what are you left with?
Quote #7
She thought bitterly that men, once they had ejaculated, were rather quick to abandon their demands. (13.248)
That's what you call a sick burn. While popular culture likes to portray women as the irrational gender, there's nothing more irrational than a man's sex drive.
Quote #8
It was Arden Bensenhaver's experience that husbands and other people did not always take rape the right way. (15.330)
Arden's right. There's no doubt that Helen was raped by Michael, but it takes Garp some time to fully admit this to himself.
Quote #9
She went on to say that The World According to Bensenhaver was "the first in-depth study, by a man, of the peculiarly male neurotic pressure many women are made to suffer." (16.340)
If we want to understand why women are mistreated in the modern world, we need to learn why men act like they do. Any ideas?
Quote #10
He huddled small and garish beside Roberta, feeling that everyone was looking at him and somehow sensing his maleness—or at least, as Roberta had warned him, his hostility. (17.103)
In The World According to Garp, "hostility" and "maleness" are practically one in the same. Even Garp—who should be the most ardent feminist in the world—proves this true time and time again.
Quote #11
So then they met at Steerling, in the Steerling family mansion, the wrestling coach's home, where Garp felt slightly more comfortable in the company of these fierce women. (18.61)
Garp is a successful man, yet even he gets intimidated by this posse of "fierce women." And you know what? This flies in the face of the gender roles we see on TV and such every day—but it also might provide a clue into what inspires misogyny in the first place: fear.