Gender and Society

• “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” 
• “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” 
• “But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So, the Lord God caused the man to fall asleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of them man, and he brought her to the man” 
• “It is the best for all tame animals to be ruled by human beings. For this is how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the male and female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled” - Aristotle 
• “[Women are] more mischievous, more impulsive, more compassionate, more easily moved to tears, more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike, more prone to despondency and less hopeful, more void of shame or self respect, more false of speech, more deceptive and more difficult to rouse to action”- Aristotle 
• “It is only men who are created directly by Gods and are given souls. Those who live rightly are returned to the stars, but those who are cowards or lead unrighteous lives may, with reason, be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation” - Plato 
• “These kinds of magazines are responsible for anorexia and bulimia deaths” - Angela McRobbie on female magazines  
• “If they are shown they are shown to have problems and be struggling. They are portrayed as unfulfilled, unattractive, unstable or having problems with relationships. Men are rarely portrayed this way” - Tuchman on women in high intensity positions on TV 
• “Motherhood gives women a liberating dignity” - Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem 
• According to de Beauvoir, Motherhood leaves women “crushed” and unable to develop as individuals while their children are young and then leaves them “empty” and “without purpose” when their children grow up 
• “A woman’s feeling that she needs to become a mother is not biological but is entirely the result of socialisation; there is no such thing as a maternal instinct” - Ann Oakley 
• “Motherhood is the fruit of marriage union of a man and woman, of that biblical knowledge which corresponds to the union of the two in one flesh. This brings about on the woman’s part a special gift of self, as an expression of the spousal love whereby the two are united to each other is closely that they become one flesh” - Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem 
• Women have motherhood “forced upon them” - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) 
• Motherhood is “symbolic of a deeper spiritual calling to care for others” - Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem 
• Motherhood is “a powerful expression of the dignity of women” - Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem  
• The nature of women “serves a purpose, particularly in relationships and family life” - Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem