Sublime

So a woman’s recognized humanity may leave much to be desired by way of moral freedom. And her sense of obligation is then likely to be excessive, on the one hand, and lacking, in many others.

Such objectifying forms of treatment can seemingly serve not only as punishment but also ways of defusing the psychic threat that certain women pose.

in much of our thinking and acting, we channel and enact social forces far beyond our threshold of conscious awareness or even ability to recover—and sometimes, markedly contrary to our explicit moral beliefs and political commitments.

Even if women like Clinton aren’t subject to false beliefs or defunct gendered stereotypes per se, they may be viewed and treated in a hostile way precisely because of their manifest competence.

when women do minister to men’s hurt feelings, they tend to be rewarded. And when they do not, they are liable to be punished.

So women’s indifference becomes aversion; ignorance becomes ignoring; testimony becomes tattling; and asking becomes extortion.

All in all, I have tried in writing this book to let myself look long, hard, and awkwardly, sometimes from uncomfortable angles, and quite often painfully, in what felt like all the wrong places, in the wrong ways, at the wrong times, in the wrong order.

But, ultimately, it felt like a confession of a sin that was less mine than a completely predictable product of the social world I lived in.

sexism often works by naturalizing sex differences, in order to justify patriarchal social arrangements, by making them seem inevitable, or portraying people trying to resist them as fighting a losing battle.