Quotes by Rosalind Coward

Womanism is feminisms vulgate. It asserts that women are the oppressed or the victims and never the collaborators in the bad things that men do. It entails a double standard around sexuality where womens sexual self-expression is seen as necessary and even desirable, but mens is seen as dangerous or even disgusting. Womanism is by no means confined to a tiny, politically motivated bunch of man-hating feminists, but is a regular feature of mainstream culture.

The old qualities of masculinity - a narrow focus on life, domestic incompetence signalling a mind on higher things, emotional reserve and acts of endurance - have become absurdities, signs more of incompetence, insensitivity, lack of intelligence than of strength.

One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behavior was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary peoples experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.