Quotes About Social norms

I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you "sir" and "madam," and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of "what is done" and "what is not done," and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena

This was another skill women were meant to learn: when a man's story had come to an end. Mostly, it wasn't a problem, as the end was thumpingly obvious; or else the narrator started snorting with laughter in advance, which was always a pretty good clue. Martha had long ago decided only to laugh at things she found funny. It seemed a normal sort of rule; but most men found it rebuking.

Very few Englishmen ever ask a woman anything about themselves. They choose instead to lecture their dinner neighbors on a new and better route to the M5, or to praise their own professional achievements. So is a man does express any curiosity about a woman sitting next to him, about her feelings, about the life she is leading, she will generally tell him anything he cares to know.

it was understood that the word "Redmond" would be treated in their house rather as though someone had silently broken wind in company. Its occurrence was distasteful but occasionally unavoidable, and while it could be politely ignored, it was certainly not encouraged or enjoyed.

My daughter, I said blankly. I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant's father to be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him?

Verrücktheiten können ganz normal sein, solange man sie selbst tut; beobachtet man einen anderen dabei, rümpft man die Nase, dreht sich rasch um und geht davon.

Moon was from somewhere up east, the kind of place where consonants took on a life of their own. In addition to this, she spoke loudly and abruptly, two things that were considered very rude to southern ears.

The entire world gave men the responsibility for everything in it except for their dicks.

But whether a couple is a man and a woman has everything to do with the meaning of marriage.

In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally

Man is a rough-hewn and woman a finished product.

Why don't the men propose, Mamma? Why don't the men propose?

I think that women don't bother disguising their desire and pleasure in dressing up, and that men, for whatever reason, tend to be a little more embarrassed.

Only when a woman decides not to have children, can a woman live like a man. That's what I've done.

There is room in today's world for men to wear dresses.

I don't hold doors for women. I'm not sure I really differentiate between men and women, in my door-related activities. Do women really care about this issue?

The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?

'Man up' is a sexist term that should be retired along with all the other gender-based imperious imperatives.

Men, being conditioned badly, are always feeling nooses closing around their necks, even dumpy boors no girl would take on a bet.

Hen nights should be banned. You're honour-bound to behave atrociously, then feel terribly ashamed afterwards. (This Charming Man)

There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.

A person who discreetly farts in an elevator is not a divine being, and a man needs to know this.

I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.