Home > Work > The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good QUOTES

The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good QUOTES

1 " Look what happened to John Stuart Mill when he openly and fully acknowledged the intellectual contribution made by Harriet Taylor to his work! At first he was not taken seriously, but when he continued to insist that Harriet Taylor's intellectual stature was comparable to his own, he was perceived as besotted, as swayed by the wiles of an unscrupulous woman, and his declaration was dismissed. "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

2 " The assumption that women's
resources are available to men and that women's creativity is but the raw
material waiting to be wrought into artistic shape by gifted men is one which
is prevalent in literary circles—and one which demands serious and systematic
attention. "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

3 " It is my contention that the population in general and male literary critics in particular entertain a negative image of women and their words, to the extent that it is widely believed that you don't have to read women's writing to know it's no good! "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

4 " But for women, the conflict between sex role and artistic commitment goes much deeper: The successful woman is-almost by definition-the one who sacrifices her self, her creativity and intellectuality, who puts them into personal (read "male") and not professional (read "competition") commitments. "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

5 " So central, however, is reading to feminist reality that it is not unusual to find women acknowledging that a particular book "changed my life"; and so central is writing to feminist experience that it is not unusual to find a feminist defined as "a woman who writes". "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

6 " Women who want to get rid of the belief that women writers are deficient might be better advised to challenge those who are doing the disqualifying, rather than to insist that they are not women, but human. "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good

7 " In a society where men dominate, where women are just another one of all the planet's resources which are available to them, it is predictable that women should be required to hand over their intellectual valuables and that these should go to replenish and enrich the reputations of men. How else could male supremacy be maintained? "

― Dale Spender , The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to Read Women's Writing to Know It's No Good