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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #standard
When you are from a well-respected family, often times you will have pressure to "live up to your family name." That is to say, depending on your family's reputation, you will have to live in accordance with that reputation so that other people keep thinking of your family in the way it is used to being thought of. If you come from a family of do-gooders, then it is important to do good. If you come from a family of investors, it is important to make lots of money. If you come from a family of plastic surgeons, you should know how to pick a nose. And if you do not live up to your family name, then possibly your family will disown you. Which isn't really nice, but can happen. ↗
In comparison, young unmarried women in America were fortunate: They had a certain measure of sexual freedom. Eighteenth-century parents allowed their daughters to spend tie with suitors unsupervised, and courting couples openly engaged in "bundling," the practice of sleeping together without undressing, in the girls' homes. (Theoretically, that is, they were sleeping together without undressing: in fact, premarital pregnancy boomed during the period of 1750 to 1780, when bundling was nearly universal.) But by the turn of the century, in a complete reversal of previous beliefs about women's sexuality, the idea took hold that only men were carnal creatures; women were thought to be passionless and therefore morally superior. ↗
Surely,' she said, much quieter, more reasonable, 'surely you've been with other women?' His glance at her was dry. 'What do you think?' She looked away at random. 'I think that it appears we have a double standard, here. Men can have sex, women can't. Who, then, do the men have sex with? ↗
No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated. ↗
Let louts learn [their] lesson and stifle their malicious talk! When they are enjoying themselves on the pub bench, with a jug and a glass and a barman there to serve up, then their chatter and their fun is to pass judmgent on some innocent girl -- would to God they'd drown in a beer barrel for it! ↗
#gender #inequality #men #misogyny #morality
Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity initiated by beauty thinking. A woman who is self-conscious can't relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is "done up" she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by "beauty"--a box continually shrinking--he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him. ↗
Of course, he showed me this one afternoon when he was skipping class. When trolls cut classes, you think they are losers. When the beautiful and/or reasonably erudite do the same thing to sit on the library steps and read poetry, you think they are on to something deep. You see only deep brown wavy hair and strong legs, well honed by years of Ultimate Frisbee. You see that book of T. S. Eliot poems held by the hand with the long, graceful fingers, and you never stop to think that it shouldn't take half a semester to read one book of poems... that maybe he is not so much reading as getting really high every morning and sleeping it off on the library steps, forcing the people who actually go to class to step or trip over him. ↗
Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards. ↗
