Quotes & Sayings About Women's Roles

It's often women who are writing leading roles for women. Most of the stuff that comes my way is not actually about women. I'm just asked to be a supporting player in a story about a man, and I, frankly, was not interested in doing that. — Carrie Coon

I think that we're in a really amazing time, where there are really a lot of really fantastic female actresses and comedians. I imagine there's just a lot of opportunity for women to have powerful roles. Or it's just that there's more women writing TV. Women tend to maybe write strong women. — Whitney Cummings

You 'ain't found out yet we're women-folks, Nanny Penn," said she. "You 'ain't seen enough of men-folks yet to. One of these days you'll find it out, an' then you'll know that we know only what men-folks think we do, so far as any use of it goes, an' how we'd ought to reckon men-folks in with Providence an' not complain of what they do any more than we do of the weather. — Mary Wilkins Freeman

For Archie was an expert in dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman. — Annie Proulx

There seems to be great roles for women, and it's not necessarily - you don't have to be young women. Suddenly, we're realizing that, generally, women are interesting, and they can also be weird and crazy and mean. — Lena Headey

Joss Whedon is a hero of mine, and what he's done for women in film and television, particularly when it comes to writing female roles that would typically go to a man, is awesome. — Bryce Dallas Howard

What I really want to do is create great roles for women. And I'm not talking Nicholas Sparks romance. I think women's roles have gotten ghettoized in these sort of places ... I'm thinking women in action, comic books, or like the Tony Soprano of women. We need some complex roles. — Melissa Rosenberg

The only kind of work which permits an able woman to realize her abilities fully, to achieve identity in society in a life plan that can encompass marriage and motherhood, is the kind that was forbidden by the feminine mystique, the lifelong commitment to an art or science, to politics or profession. If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based. — Betty Friedan

The roles that men and women play are no longer the standard traditional roles of way back when but are those of two very individual people living their lives. I think it's been a hard transition in society - just take a look at the divorce rate - to figure out what that means now. How do you resolve that? — Lisa Edelstein

Men justify the women taking care of the kids and the house and holding down a job because, after all, men are the primary breadwinners in the family. But that's because we fucking pay women less! Men claiming superiority over women because men make more money than they do is like claiming you're stronger than a lion that you tranquilized and put in a cage. Sure, you're in a better spot now - but how 'bout you unchain the beast and see what happens? — Trae Crowder

I've noticed a lot of people talking about the wealth of roles for powerful women in television lately. And when I look around the room at the women here and I think about the performances that I've watched this year, what I see actually are women who are sometimes powerful and sometimes not. Sometimes sexy and sometimes not. Sometimes honourable and sometimes not. And what I think is new is the wealth of roles for actual women in television and in film. That's what I think is revolutionary and evolutionary and it's what turning me on. — Maggie Gyllenhaal

I would suggest that especially in the differential of images that arise, in the inflections that we find within the representations of women we may also recover a subjectivity for women. For this reason also I am specifically interested in bringing to light other models for women's roles, models that upset business as usual and offer a greater diversity of possibilities for the easy we can imagine women. — Loriliai Biernacki

Never say never - and I certainly don't judge anyone who does it. But most of the characters I play are going through some kind of emotional turmoil, so my job requires me to have expression. If my face was froze, what right do I have to play that part? All the women who haven't done anything to their faces are still able to play great roles. And some of the ones who have done something have messed it up- they look freakish. Anyway, for me it's about playing women with rich lives - and the longer the life, the deeper the wrinkles. — Naomi Watts

Don't we see that men's rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us - they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service. — Moderata Fonte

The roles that I feel I get, or handed to me, or whatever, are not that interesting. I don't think it's a problem that's specific to black women. I think it's a problem that's specific to movie-making in America. — Aunjanue Ellis

So, first, I wanted to be a part of the project because I thought it was an important story to tell. On top of that, it's rare to find roles for strong, young, feisty women, especially in a military film. And I love that Suarez ends up being the moral compass of the story, and that she's also brave enough to stand up to all these men. — Zoe Kravitz

The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other's truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love. — Bell Hooks

At the drop of a hat, people will say there are no roles for women after 40. It's there with a bunch of other rules I'm not interested in. — Lesley Nicol

Over my lifetime, women have demonstrated repeatedly that they can do anything that men can do, while still managing traditional women's work at the same time. But the same expansion of roles has not been available to men. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

You can be any sex you like provided you act male. There's no men and women in the Watch, just a bunch of lads. — Terry Pratchett

For me, the times that I dressed provocatively had been empowering. It felt good. It's those times that I felt comfortable in my own skin. Like really, really comfortable. And let's face it, body self-esteem issues are a hurdle many women struggle to overcome.
So when a person tears a woman down for how's she's dressed, they are tearing her down at a moment she feels at the top of her game. That's where the real shame is - not in how a woman is dressed, but in the desire to minimise her self-worth and empowerment. That's not kind, or well meaning. It's rude and cruel. — Annastacia Dickerson

Films with female protagonists don't attract many eyeballs. Most of them are perceived as feminist films. If Bollywood starts giving women major roles in entertaining movies, then the audience, too, will open up to the idea of watching commercial films in which the actresses do more than just play the role of the hero's love interest. — Bipasha Basu

One is that if women's sexuality in Africa wasn't under assault, if women were able to say no, if women weren't subject to predatory attacks by men, or predatory behavior generally, then you would have a disease in Africa called AIDS. But you wouldn't have a pandemic. — Stephen Lewis

There's a lot of good roles for men, always, and for very young girls. But for women, not so many. — Emmanuelle Seigner

I wish writing was a talent that I had. I've tried. Unfortunately, I'm just not talented in the writing department. But, if I was, I would just write complicated roles for women because there's a lack of them. — Eva Mendes

Men are biological. Women are biological. We pretend our minds are in control, but that's a very tenuous control at best, and a civilized society can't be built on uncontrolled biology. I see it in my work: intelligence betrayed by lust, by jealousy, by macho ownership; otherwise trustworthy men who can't be trusted at all around women, or vice versa. Hell, look at Congress. Well-intentioned, progressive, admired law-makers who end up losing it all because they can't control how they react to women! And I certainly don't trust most women around men — Sheri S. Tepper

Even the notion that women should have children at all is based on the idea that a woman's inherent and most important role is that of mother. Shockingly, men's 'innate' roles are a lot more fun than the ones bestowed on women. — Jessica Valenti

By healing our internal divisions and fully accepting ourselves as we are, we learn to accept and empower our sexual core, and we learn to honor our unique expression of Masculine and Feminine gifts. We fully incarnate in our bodies, at home and at ease in a man's body or a woman's body. And we learn to love with complete abandon, as free men and women, without rules or roles or guarded hearts. — David Deida

Martin: Yes, I'd like to go home and do some work. I'm writing a novel about women from the women's point of view. — Caryl Churchill

It's funny because when I first met with Carmen, she said, "Have you ever thought about doing TV?" And I was like, "No, not really, but I'd audition for TV." And she said, "That's where the roles are for women now. That's where you can go and get a really great part." — Eve Hewson

Young women you will be the ones who will provide the example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous lovely praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones to provide an example of family life in a time when families are under attack, being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights. — Elaine S. Dalton

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

I traveled and worked with amazing actors, like Andy Garcia, Alec Baldwin, Brendan Fraser, Forest Whitaker, Lee Pace. It was this great learning experience. And then, I started watching a lot of television. I was always in these foreign countries and I would get TV shows on DVD, and I started to realize that all of the amazing roles for women were on television. I was spoiled by Buffy because I thought that was the way it was everywhere, and it's not. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women. — Susan Sarandon

A man in love ... is the master, so it seems, but only if his lady friend permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of the relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the course of an affair. Never is the complicity between victim and executioner more essential. Even chained, down on her knees, begging for mercy, it is the woman, finally, who is in command ... the all powerful slave, dragging herself along the ground at her master's heels, is now really the god. The man is only her priest, living in fear and trembling of her displeasure. — Anne Desclos

Just as we need to encourage women to test life's many options, we need to acknowledge real limits of energy and resources. It would be pointless and cruel to prescribe role combination for every woman at each moment of her life. Life has its seasons. There are moments when a woman ought to invest emotionally in many different roles, and other moments when she may need to conserve her psychological energies. — Faye J Crosby

Nothing indicts female allegiance to patriarchy more than the willingness to behave as though the problems created by cultural investment in sexist thinking about the nature of male and female roles can be solved by women's working harder. — Bell Hooks

I single handedly revolutionised women's roles in the WWE, before me all women were eye candy. — Amy Dumas

Men have jobs, while women have Roles: Mother, Wife, Goddess, Temptress, etc. That's probably why it's so hard for women to rewrite the rules. You're not just changing a job description, but an ancient myth. You're revising the Bible, Poetry, Legend and Psychoanalytic Scripture. — Caryl Rivers

When I started in the theater, I'd do plays by Shakespeare or Ibsen or Chekhov, and they all created great women's roles. — Annette Bening

It's my choice to be beautiful. It's my choice to be ugly. And it's my choice to decided what those words actually mean. — Virginia Petrucci

I never wrote just straight women's roles. I liked the strong characters. I don't mean women who have masculine qualities about them, but something that has some intestinal fortitude, some guts to it. — Ida Lupino

What's more, I live in Berkeley, California. If princesses had infiltrated OUR little retro hippie hamlet, imagine what was going on places where women actually shaved their legs! — Peggy Orenstein

Women's roles are diminished for obvious reasons. It's the men whose names are on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and who were generals and soldiers. — Cokie Roberts

Modeling is about illusion. It's a fantasy world where models play various roles. By featuring extreme looks, magazines show women how to have fun with makeup and clothes, and to inspire them to experiment - just like we did when we were little girls. — Cindy Crawford

Immigration was a huge force in changing my outlook. I moved to America 30 years ago. I had to reassess my beliefs, especially about women's roles. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I think the roles in television are better for women right now. At this point, I don't want to continue doing the same things I've been doing in film because it's very limited. — Sandra Oh

What I think is new is the wealth of roles for actual women in television and in film. That's what I think is revolutionary and evolutionary. — Maggie Gyllenhaal

For years, it's driven me crazy that women don't have better roles, especially in comedies. I know so many funny women but I always felt ... misogynist streak is too strong a term - but a dismissiveness. — Paul Feig

Yes, there are passages in Scripture - especially in Paul's epistles - about women's roles. But it is biblically untenable and soul crushing to tell a woman that the only worthwhile activity she can do is to birth children and serve a husband and a family. This mind-set also creates an idol out of the family structure, making success as a homemaker/mother the most important vocation in a woman's life. And although this is a high calling, it should not trump our first and foremost calling: to believe in Christ. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

There are so many female roles - particularly for young women - that are just somebody's girlfriend or somebody's daughter, or that are accessories to the main story rather than being three-dimensional characters. — Hannah Murray

When girls see women in leadership roles speaking out for what they believe in, they see it is possible for them, too. Instead of a faraway dream, their aspirations become real, concrete and achievable. Womanhood starts to look more inviting. — Tabby Biddle

There is more for women in terms of character roles now. Judi Dench and Maggie Smith have constantly changed over the years and challenged themselves with different roles. That's impressive. — Imogen Poots

Why, in the Peking Opera, are women's roles played by men? ... Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act. — David Henry Hwang

It was so fascinating to be a part of this, because as the women took on these central roles that had all the good lines, therefore all the good laughs, all the great moments- the men, who had joined us to sit on stage, started squirming rather uncomfortably. And got really bored. Because they weren't used to being the supporting cast. It was fascinating to feel their discomfort, to discuss it with them afterwards when they said, 'It's boring to play the girl role.' And I said, 'Yeah. Yeah, ya think? Welcome to our world.' — Olivia Wilde

That's always a fun thing to play, a relationship where there's equals. I often play roles that are repressive, or women who are slightly repressed or having some kind of internal conflict. — Laila Robins

And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men's. — Phyllis Schlafly

To acknowledge that there are such fundamental differences between the genders, and that men an women were designed for different roles, many not correspond with modern feminist sensibilities, but this is after all, what God's own Word says. God created men and women differently with a purpose, and His plan for them reflects their differences. Scripture is clear in teaching that wives should be subject to the authority of their husbands in marriage and that women are to be under the authority and instruction of men in the church. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Why love has to intense? Women's love isn't. It is a male contribution to a relationship. What does a woman contribute? Children continuity- intentional immortality. — Aporva Kala

Someday in our future it may be possible for women everywhere not to be restricted to those roles society deems natural, God-given, or appropriately feminine. A woman will not need to be disguised as a man to go outside, to climb a tree, or to make money. She will not need to make an effort to resemble a man, or to think like one. Instead, she can speak a language that men will want to understand. She will be free to wear a suit or a skirt or something entirely different. She will not count as three-quarters of a man, and her testimony will not be worth half a man's. She will be recognized as someone's sister, mother, and daughter. And maybe, someday, her identity will not be confined to how she relates to a brother, a son, or a father. Instead, she will be recognized as an individual, whose life holds value only in itself. — Jenny Nordberg

Television is also a great tool for women. As you know, the best female roles are often on television, so it's a very exciting time. I've really embraced it. The pace is great, but also not so great sometimes. You feel like you have to make sure to pay attention, at all times, to not let anything slip through. — Diane Kruger

I feel it most in my work, because there aren't roles about women who are spiritually evolving. That anyone would even write something like that, something that's worth doing, would be a miracle! — Olympia Dukakis

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

Why do women love The Princess Bride so much? Here's a thought: because its hero, Westley, is able to simultaneously fill the roles of dashing romantic adventurer and seriously devoted (maybe even borderline henpecked) fiance. — Stephen H. Segal

There still aren't enough[ roles for women of color]. And I'd say that's the case, not only for African-American women, but for all women in the Hollywood game. It's just slim pickings, and a very challenging time for us. I think that's why more of us need to work our way behind the camera in order to create roles that really illuminate who women are. We still have room for growth in that area, without a doubt. — Jada Pinkett Smith

Men's ideas about what women are have been formed from their ruling caste position, and have assigned women characteristics that would most advantage their masters, as well as justify men's rule over them. They do not represent 'truth' but have been promoted as if they were, with the backing of science and patriarchal views of biology. — Sheila Jeffreys

Some actors wear their roles like clothing," he said. "No matter what part they're playing, you can always easily see who it is beneath the costume."
"It's how drag queens do women, darling," volunteered the elegant Miss X.
[ ... ]
"The really amazing actors strip themselves down to nothing-they make themselves a blank slate, and you can never guess what they're going to look like or act like in their next film because they completely transform themselves."
"It's how transsexuals do women, darling," opined Doris Fish with an arched eyebrow in my direction. — Kate Bornstein

I think there's a lack of quality roles for women in comedies. Most actresses get cast as the "eye-roller" or "the serious one," while men in comedies get to do all the fun, silly stuff and muck around. Sometimes you just have to search hard for a role or create one for yourself. — Isla Fisher

Magistrate: May I die a thousand deaths ere I obey one who wears a veil!
Lysistrata: If that's all that troubles you, here take my veil, wrap it round your head, and hold your tounge. Then take this basket; put on a girdle, card wool, munch beans. The War shall be women's business. — Aristophanes

Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin. They know that she's a role model to women and other - and reformers all over America. She's a reformer. — John McCain

I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission. — Elizabeth Meriwether

Again and again, we keep returning to this question: what does the Bible say? If it forbids women from taking the office of pastor or elder (as I have argued extensively elsewhere),4 then we have no right to say this is a "unique time" when we can disobey what God's Word says. Therefore those who argue that women should have all ministry roles open to them because this is a "unique time" in history are taking the church another step down the path toward liberalism. — Wayne A. Grudem

Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars. — Barbara Kingsolver

I grew up idolizing Madeline Kahn and Lily Tomlin and Carol Burnett, Ruth Gordon, Rosalind Russell, Amy Irving, women who were stylish and real actresses who did real work and could not be replaced with anyone else. You cannot cast anyone else in Madeline Kahn's roles. — Jenny Slate

But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I know. And the sick must husband their resources even as they are resourceful for their husbands. But I couldn't help wanting for her, couldn't help the feeling that she'd given in, that she had measured out with coffee spoons what it was that she might ask of life and having found it lacking, tragically, gapingly lacking, had decided none-the-less to accept her modest share. I wanted her ignoble, irresponsible, unreasonable, petty, grasping, fucking greedy for the lot of it, jostling and spitting and clawing for every grain of life. — Claire Messud

Every time there's a really good story, there's women in it. We may not get as many roles, but the roles we get are really good, I think, for the most part. — Sigourney Weaver

We can pretend all we like that women are equal, ut as long as men and women are continually encouraged to supress the broad aspects of their humanity that we decry as "feminine", we're all screwed.
Because it's those things qe celebrate as "other" that make us truly human. It's what we label "soft" or "feminune" that makes civilization possible, It's our empathy, our ability to care and nurtureand connect. It's our ability to come together. To buld. To remake. Asking men to cut away their "feminine" traits asks them to cut away half their humanity, just as asking women to supress ther "masculine" traits asks them to deny their full autonomy. — Kameron Hurley

The 1890s was a decade when life began to change in urban America. Modern conveniences that we now take for granted came into use; women's roles became less restrictive; and San Francisco, a port city with influences from all over the world, was a lively place in which to reside. — Marcia Muller

What Women's Lib might achieve if their 'consciousness raising' - or in plain English, brainwashing - campaign succeeds is a society whose members have identical roles but are perpetually at war with themselves; a society of males made neurotic by suppressed masculinity, of females made miserable by having masculine roles thrust upon them that contradict their feminine impulses. — Arianna Huffington

Men and women have defined roles, and it's the responsibility of a parent to make sure they know which way to go; otherwise, a child would feed themselves with their feet without the correct guidance. — Monica Johnson

Although some observers believe that feminism and sexual liberalism no longer threaten family values, little in fact has changed. Contemporary sexual liberals are merely less honest than earlier feminists in facing the inevitable antifamily consequences of their beliefs. They continue to maintain that the differences between men and women, such as men's greater drive to produce in the workplace, are somehow artificial and dispensable. They still insist that men and women can generally share and reverse roles without jeopardizing marriage. They still encourage a young woman to sacrifice her twenties in intense rivalry with men, leaving her to clutch desperately for marriage as her youthfulness and fertility pass. Although they declare themselves supporters of the family, they are scarcely willing to define it. — George Gilder

What I learned was there's no roles for women who won't be in their 40s. For women who will be in their 40s, there's a ton of work. — Sharon Stone

Yes, it's unfortunate that we have been conditioned to see an alternative to motherhood as not normal. But you do all realise that some of the most brilliant women in the world don't have kids, right? Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Helen Mirren, Dolly Parton? Do you think their lives carry an air of tragedy because they never had children? I don't. I'm sure they all had different reasons for not doing it, some maybe couldn't, some didn't want to, but these women's lives are not empty because of that. I think it's important we take the lead from our heroes and for everyone to stop valuing women on whether they do, or do not, become mothers. The irony of yours and your listeners' opinions is that it is you boxing women in to these roles, not men. It's highly un-feminist of you.' She — Dawn O'Porter

Boyhood proves that there's still good roles for women over 40, as long as you get hired when you're under 40. — Tina Fey

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

In Alien, Sigourney Weaver's role was written for a man. In Salt, Angelina Jolie's role was written for Tom Cruise. These things, when reversed, do prove to be just as exciting and entertaining with women in leading roles. — Olivia Wilde

Indeed, there were times when it was quite worrying that after hitting a certain age, you wouldn't hear from a lot of actresses anymore. But that's when women hit their stride and get a lot more interesting. You see that in roles for males but it's slowly getting better for women too. — Christine Bottomley

Normative statements about "women's roles" and girls' and women's behaviour being "appropriately feminine" were replaced with more neutral statements about what women and girl versus boys and men do and think and say they want. In this way, conventionally gendered behaviour was taken out of the context of prescription and presented as simple description. This had the possibly unanticipated consequence, though, of taking these behaviours out of the context of the social world. The descriptive approach significantly deemphasised the role of norms, social structures, and modelling in developing gendered traits. Instead, disembodied as "naked facts" of sex differences, they began to look more and more like simple reflections of male and female behaviour. — Rebecca M. Jordan-Young

The tyranny of maternal duty is not new, but it has become considerably more pronounced with the rise of naturalism, and it has thus far produced neither a matriarchy nor sexual equality, but rather a regression in women's status. — Elisabeth Badinter

When a judge walks into the room, and everybody stands up, you're not standing up to that guy, you're standing up to the robe that he's wearing and the role that he's going to play. What makes him worthy of that role is his integrity, as a representative of the principles of that role, and not some group of prejudices of his own. So what you're standing up to is a mythological character. I imagine some kings and queens are the most stupid, absurd, banal people you could run into, probably interested only in horses and women, you know. But you're not responding to them as personalities, you're responding to them in their mythological roles. When someone becomes a judge, or President of the United States, the man is no longer that man, he's the representative of an eternal office; he has to sacrifice his personal desires and even life possibilities to the role that he now signifies. — Joseph Campbell

What's universal is the texture of our relationships. It's evolving. Times are changing with the women's movement. Men's roles are being redefined and, in some ways, they're confused. — Terry McMillan

There are some fantastic roles for women and women of a certain age on television, whether it's 'Medium' or 'The Closer' or 'Damages' or 'Saving Grace.' — Megan Follows

I'm getting a lot of roles as women who are very powerful. I think that's a reflection of me as a person. — Melinda Clarke

I saw my role as prime minister's wife as being human towards other humans and not treating them badly. — Margaret Whitlam

I think, certainly in the more civilized societies, women's roles are growing in power all of the time. — Sally Quinn

Despite all of the social advances in women's rights and the push for gender equality in the workplace, it seems like modern men still want a woman that they can take care of at home. — Shannon Mullen

(...) performance anxiety [in the worplace] is connected to other, more general fears which have to do with feeling inadequate and defenseless in the world: the fear of retaliation from someone with whom one disagrees; the fear of being critisized for doing something wrong; the fear of saying "no"; the fear of stating one's needs clearly and directly, without manipulating. These are the kinds of fears that affect women in particular, because we were brought up to believe that taking care of ourselves, asserting ourselves, is unfeminine. We wish (...) to feel attractive to men: non-threatening, sweet, "feminine". This wish crimps the joy and productiveness with which women could be leading their lives. — Colette Dowling

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

It's not fair that there aren't very many juicy or varied roles for women. — Rosanna Arquette

If you look at men's roles for the last thousand years, the desire is fundamental. We want to take care of, provide for, and be of service to ... women. — Matthew Fox