Women With Careers Quotes & Sayings

It's a weird thing society puts on us women. They tell us we can have careers (well, after they told us we could vote-they sort of said it would be ok if we wanted to have a career, as long as we agree to get paid less than a man for the same job), and then they tell us that we aren't real women if we have careers but no babies, and if we dare pick a career over a baby...we better at least talk about that career like its a baby in order to blend in and not call attention to the fact that we're selfish women who are not carrying on the human race. — Jen Kirkman

Now, it is frequently asserted that, with women, the job does not come first. What (people cry) are women doing with this liberty of theirs? What woman really prefers a job to a home and family? Very few, I admit. It is unfortunate that they should so often have to make the choice. A man does not, as a rule, have to choose. He gets both. Nevertheless, there have been women ... who had the choice, and chose the job and made a success of it. And there have been and are many men who have sacrificed their careers for women ... When it comes to a choice, then every man or woman has to choose as an individual human being, and, like a human being, take the consequences. — Dorothy L. Sayers

At the beginning of my career, I shot a lot more documentaries because I liked the adventure, and probably also because it was easier, and still is easier, for women DPs to shoot documentary than it is to shoot fiction. — Maryse Alberti

All women like men to be strong and decided and following out their careers. A woman wants to be motherly to a man and protect his weak side, but he must have a strong side too, which she can respect ... If you ever care for a woman, I don't advise you to let her see that you've got no ambition. Otherwise she'll get to despise you. — Christopher Isherwood

I think 'Saturday Night Live', starting in the 1970s, really gave women an outlet to be funny. A lot of those women went on to have film careers, from Kristen Wiig now to Tina Fey and Gilda Radner. — Emma Stone

The women I know who have children and have careers, they seem to be very happy. They love their children and they love their jobs. But happiness comes out of being willing to do your work in your twenties to find out who you are, what you love. — Candace Bushnell

Women now have to put so much attention into their careers, and not many families can pull off a single income. — Jordana Spiro

There's a horrible stereotype of both the romance writer and the romance reader as somehow undereducated and unprofessional, when in fact there are a number of incredibly well-educated professional women who have chosen to leave their other careers and go into writing romance. — Lauren Willig

I am saying that I was able to mold those hours around the needs of my family, and that matters. And I really encourage other people at Facebook to mold hours around themselves. — Sheryl Sandberg

I do believe that by virtue of having a volunteer army, you are going to have men and women who decide to serve and others who decide to pursue different careers. — Mitt Romney

Up until 1900, more than half the graduates from women's colleges remained single, many of them carving out careers in new fields such as social work. — Stephanie Coontz

I was labeled as a tricky player early on and have been regarded as tricky throughout my whole career. It was said that I was able to pull out tricks from nowhere. — Judit Polgar

The careers that I admire and actually try to emulate are those of Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. Those women, to me, make amazing choices. They're sexy, beautiful women, but that doesn't dictate their choices. — Eva Mendes

Women, at 50, are on a plateau with their careers, but later they ascend. — Tracey Emin

Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work. — Mary Matalin

That's because women are paying an even higher price than men for their participation in a work culture fueled by stress, sleep deprivation, and burnout. That is one reason why so many talented women, with impressive degrees working in high-powered jobs, end up abandoning their careers when they can afford — Arianna Huffington

The 'futures' and 'careers' for which American students now prepare are for the most part intellectual and moral wastelands. This chrome-plated consumers' paradise would have us grow up to be well-behaved children. But an important minority of men and women coming to the front today have shown they will die rather than be standardized, replaceable, and irrelevant. — Mario Savio

I do not go so far as the extreme male 'sexists' who contend that women should confine themselves to the home and children and that any search for alternative careers is unnatural. On the other hand, I do not see much more support for the opposite contention that domestic-type women are violating their natures. — Murray Rothbard

It was the era that I later analyzed, the "feminine mystique" era, [when] "career woman" was a dirty word. And so I didn't want a career anymore. [But] I had to do something. So I started freelancing for women's magazines. — Betty Friedan

Definitely. Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore - women that have no boundaries, no borders. They can do anything, They can be any character and you accept it and go with it as a viewer, and as an audience member. That's the kind of career that I'm looking for. — Jessica Biel

You'd be lucky to get tortured to death in one of my films. It's the best thing that could happen to your career. But I'm very aware that as soon as you put women in this situation, all of a sudden people are like: "Wow, well wait a second!" Immediately, people become very sensitive to it. — Eli Roth

Everyone knows that marriage is the biggest personal decision you make, but it's the biggest career decision you can make. — Sheryl Sandberg

In many cases, women need to be more open to taking risks in their careers.2 — Sheryl Sandberg

At the beginning of their careers many writers have a need to overwrite. They choose carefully turned-out phrases; they want to impress their readers with their large vocabularies. By the excesses of their language, these young men and women try to hide their sense of inexperience. With maturity the writer becomes more secure in his ideas. He finds his real tone and develops a simple and effective style. — Jorge Luis Borges

It's great for my daughter to see Beyonce and Taylor Swift, women that are in charge of their own careers, writing songs from their own perspective and taking people to task. That's very different from when I was growing up - it was all like, 'Stand by your man.' — Corin Tucker

I'm not saying that women shouldn't pursue careers, but if it is going to be equal in the workplace, it should certainly pan out to be a little bit more equal in the home, too. — Imelda May

The feminism of equality, of toughness, of anti-discrimination, has been overwhelmed by one of victimhood and demands for special treatment....At a certain point, when we demand an equal ratio of men to women in certain fields, what we're criticizing is not "the system," but the choices that women themselves are making.....let's keep our eye on the question of equal opportunity and stop obsessing about equal outcomes, lest we find ourselves trying to cure society, not of sexism, but of free choice. — Elizabeth Wasserman

Education is fundamental. And I know some aren't blessed to be afforded the luxury, 'cause as sad as it is in 2016, it is still a luxury. I'd say when you're young, look for someone, an older woman, you'd like to emulate. Not necessarily her career, but the soul and essence of that woman. I use women like Susan Taylor and Tyra Banks to girdle me up so I can find my own strength and forge my own path. — Eva Marcille

Forty-three percent of highly qualified women with children are leaving careers, or "off-ramping", for a period of time. — Sheryl Sandberg

A bit of a theory, more a corner of the eye noticing than an airtight argument: in the course of long artistic careers, women are more likely than men to change form and style, Proteus-like. — Stacey D'Erasmo

Women have made enormous progress on the lower and middle rungs of the career ladder, but we are failing to make the leap into senior positions. Everyone jumps to the conclusion that it's motherhood that holds women back, but often the big roadblock is the lack of executive presence. — Sylvia Ann Hewlett

A woman's biography - with about eight famous historical exceptions - so often turns out to be the story of a man and the woman who helped his career. — Catherine Drinker Bowen

The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan's elected female leader. Benazir — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Women retain their dependence needs long past the developmental point at which those needs are normal and healthy. Unbeknownst to others - and worse, unbeknownst to ourselves - we carry dependency within us like some autoimmune disease. We carry it with us from kindergarten through college and graduate school, into our careers, and into the convenient "arrangement" of our marriages. (...) Much of the time - for many of us, all of the time - our unwillingness to stand on our own two feet goes unnoticed because it's expected. Women are relational creatures. They nurture and need. This, we have been told for many, many years, is nature.
And although it cripples us, we have to let it go unquestioned. — Colette Dowling

College women are typically given to declaring for one or the other (in my day, for marriage; now, generally, for careers), and only later finding to their surprise that they must cope with both
while their men may be trying to figure out how to get out of doing both. — Judith Martin

Juggling a career and a family is a challenge for anyone, and even more so (in general) for women. Probably the most important advice to any woman interested in a career is to pick your life partner with care. Having a supportive partner is key to trying to manage the constraints of these two demanding roles. — Daphne Koller

Let's just call what happened in the eighties the reclamation of motherhood ... by women I knew and loved, hard-driving women with major careers who were after not just babies per se or motherhood per se, but after a reconciliation with their memories of their own mothers. So having a baby wasn't just having a baby. It became a major healing. — Anne Taylor Fleming

I don't believe in competing, because there's room for everyone. You have to compete with yourself, because your duty to grow as a human being and keeping your humility is much more important than your music career. You can get money, women, travels, but all that's an illusion. — Juan Gabriel

My work has often been described as "chick lit" and for the most part the term doesn't bother me. I think it simply signals to readers that the book is about women, written for women (although many men enjoy my books), about issues that concern women (relationships, careers, etc.) The only thing that bothers me is when the label is used disparagingly, to imply that all chick lit is, by definition, superficial, beach-read fluff because I believe that this is akin to saying that all women are devoid of substance and the issues that concern us, are fundamentally trivial ones. And I take issue with that. — Emily Giffin

Oh my God, you're serious. Honey, I am a six time Women's Champion, if you get into the ring with me it will not be for a Lingerie Pillow Fight, it will not be to shoot t-shirts. If you get into the ring with me I will end your career just like that. Are you sure that's what you want? — Trish Stratus

The bosses can't read your mind, so I think women should tell them what they want out of their careers. — Ainsley Earhardt

Can't you clerk in a store?'
'No.'
'Can't you be a waitress?'
'Would you be anything like you're suggesting to me? Then why, if you're too good, is it all right for me?'
'It's not a question of superiority, Dora. Come on, be a telephone operator and get paid while you work. Or how about ushering in a theater? I have it. You'll get a job in a flower shop. They always do.'
He looked at her so sharply that she knew she must make some answer, and she began to speak as if her words came from another mind, another mouth. 'I am beyond this plane of animal existence. I'm made of different stuff. I lived all this ages ago and I'm through with it for good. — Margery Latimer

Women are told that we can have the most exciting, glamorous, demanding, rewarding careers ever but we also have to be constantly sexy and sexually interested, and when we have children we have to spend more time with our kids. Of course you can't really do all three of those things at once, so we feel this tremendous stress. — Stephanie Coontz

I put a lot of emphasis on how to treat people. The reason for this is simple. The real success of our personal lives and careers can best be measured by the relationships we have with the people most dear to us - our family, friends, and coworkers. If we fail in this aspect of our lives, no matter how vast our worldly possessions or how high on the corporate ladder we climb, we will have achieved very little. — Mary Kay Ash

I absolutely don't want to suggest that women are unreliable because we're mothers - on the contrary. But the question of who brings up the kids has a material effect on all women's careers. — Beeban Kidron

You know, there's no pleasure like the joy of being a sexual woman.

You can take your careers, your money, your houses and possessions, and you go and throw them in a lake.

Because life is really all about sex.

That's what I keep learning, again and again.

It's the most important thing, woven into the very centre of life.

And I just know I was put on this earth to be a sexual woman, and to explore as much about sex as I can. — Fiona Thrust

The most significant women in scripture were influential not because of their careers, but because of their character. The message these women collectively give is not about "gender equality"; it's about true feminine excellence. And this is always exemplified in moral and spiritual qualities rather than by social standing, wealth, or physical appearance. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Here's a woman, a real pioneer for other women looking for careers in stand-up comedy. And talk about guts - she would come out here and sit in this chair and say some things that were unbelievable - where you would have to swallow pretty hard ... but it was hilarious ... the force of her comedy was overpowering. — David Letterman

I'm going to keep talking about what I think is interesting for my entire career. If you want to hear about how women do a lot of shoe shopping or how being married sucks, go see the guy who does jokes about that. But if you come to see my live show, there's going to be 20 minutes on religion for the rest of my life, probably. If that makes me a caricature, so be it. — David Cross

Many women assume they can't be good mothers and have challenging careers at the same time, so they might give up trying to do both as they get to a crucial point in their career. Although it can be hard at times, it's important for women to recognize the benefits of working outside the home. — Susan Wojcicki

Women work overtime, do double triple duty, juggle ten balls at once
children, careers, husbands, schoolwork, housework, church work, and more work
and when one of the balls drops, we think something is wrong with us. — Susan L. Taylor

Times have changed.These days girls impress each other with their careers, not with the men on their arm. — Somi Ekhasomhi

Women want men, careers, money, children, friends, luxury, comfort, independence, freedom, respect, love, and a three-dollar pantyhose that won't run. — Phyllis Diller

Women need to understand that it is possible to stay in the workforce. A lot of women decide to take a back seat in their professional careers even before they are pregnant or are ready to have children. — Ruchi Sanghvi

It would not be going too far to assert that ... conflict confronts every woman who ventures upon a career of her own and who is ... unwilling to pay for her daring with the renunciation of her femininity. — Karen Horney

A man has always been seen as someone who works hard and has a full-time occupation. I think women should have the same opportunity and not have any stigma attached to them if they choose to pursue their careers. — Meryl Streep

The good news is that women's roles have changed so dramatically over the past three decades that women now expect to have careers, balance work and family, express their individual autonomy. — Michael Kimmel

Affirmative action and equal opportunity was never and is not intended to let people with fewer skills and less experience triumph over those with more. It was intended to aid a decision between two people who have the same set of skills. — Tarah Wheeler

Corporate men and women, once divided by striking differences in opportunity for career growth, have come to share career chaos. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Women's magazines will often ask me things like, 'All right, I need six five-minute happiness strategies.' And I say, well, there aren't any five-minute happiness strategies. This is something you have to do kind of every day for the rest of your life. Just like if you want to raise moral children or if you want to advance in your career. It's a goal you pursue your whole life. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Why are women so fearful? The answer to that question lies at the root of The Cinderella Complex. (...) Many women achieve a certain amount of success in their careers and professions and still remain inwardly insecure. In fact (...), it's remarkable how many women these days retain a hidden core of self doubt while performing on the outside as if they were towers of confidence. (...)
Lack of confidence seems to follow us from childhood (...) No matter how fiercely we try to live like adults - flexible, powerful and free - that girl-child hangs on (...). The effects of such insecurity are widespread, and they result in a disturbing social phenomenon: women in general tend to function well below the level of their native abilities. For reasons that are both cultural and psychological - a system that doesn't really expect a great deal from us, in combination with our own personal fears of standing up and facing the world - women are keeping themselves down. — Colette Dowling

The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so
concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities. — Jessie Bernard

Business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,
if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life. — Hortense Odlum

We need to create a society where girls and women are getting the same encouragement and support to build their careers as the boys and men are. From the start. — Matt McGorry

The domestic career is no more natural to all women than the military career is natural to all men. — George Bernard Shaw

When I was making films [early in my career] there were very, very few female directors, and there were certainly no women on set, which made taking one's clothes off all the more difficult — Helen Mirren

You should choose organisations that are going to be flexible and supportive and recognise people are going through different stages in their careers and actually need different sorts of support. — Gail Kelly

I'll tell you what you did with Atheists for about 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind, drove them into exile, humiliated them, seized their properties, arrested them for blasphemy. You dehumanised them with beatings and exquisite torture, gouged out their eyes, slit their tongues, stretched, crushed, or broke their limbs, tore off their breasts if they were women, crushed their scrotums if they were men, imprisoned them, stabbed them, disembowelled them, hanged them, burnt them alive.
And you have nerve enough to complain to me that I laugh at you. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

I really think we need more women to lean into their careers and to be really dedicated to staying in the work force. — Sheryl Sandberg

I started my career by becoming a stalker, watching women in the street, the way they greet each other. I thought if I could capture some of that expression, that depth of emotion, it will make me interesting to watch as an actor. — Bob Hoskins

I feel it is now my duty to speak to young women, to encourage them to have careers and, particularly, careers in science. — Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move. — Erica Jong

You then will lean way in to your career. You will find something you love doing and you will do it with gusto. Find the right career for you and go all the way to the top. Start out by Aiming high. Try- and try hard. I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. — Sheryl Sandberg

Before the current decade ends, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing suborbital flights aboard privately funded vehicles ... It won't be too long before bright young men and women set their eyes on careers in Earth orbit and say: "I want to work 200 kilometers from home-straight up!" — Arthur C. Clarke

Kids in college often look for mentors and role models to model their careers after, and women don't have the equivalent of a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. I think it's a self-perpetuating loop. — Ruchi Sanghvi

I think obviously we need to work harder at extending the women's movement. How do women who have prepared for careers and have a child get back to the workplace and still fulfill maternal roles? — Tom Brokaw

I don't want to be in competition with anyone. I'm friends with women I work with and I applaud any success they have in their careers. And I'm not just saying that because it sounds good, I genuinely want people to do well and have success. — Charissa Thompson

I'm fighting to make childcare more affordable for working parents so they can continue working and advancing their careers, closing wage gaps that for too long have held women back from the fair economic opportunities they need. — Kirsten Gillibrand

Women or mothers in middle-age or mid-career have valuable life experience and may offer an untapped recruitment pool. — Hazel Blears

Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics. — Virginia Woolf

To marry and have children is the ideal life for a woman. What career could ever be as fine? To give the world splendid men and women-isn't that the noblest thing a woman could possibly do? — Jessie Willcox Smith

As more women lean in to their careers, more men need to lean in to their families. We need to encourage men to be more ambitious in their homes. — Sheryl Sandberg