Thirty years on, femininity is still compulsory for women — and has become an option for men — while genuine femaleness remains grotesque to the poin… - Germaine Greer

The most unpardonable privilege that men enjoy is their magnanimity.

The Poison Maiden has conceived by him, and is plumb ready to enter the divine category of mother, only one last fiend clubs her to death. The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catharine in A Farewell to Arms, or the Grecian Urn, the 'tension that she be perfect' means that she must die, leavinf the hero's status as a great lover unchallenged. The pattern is still commonplace: the hero cannot marry. The sexual exploit must be conquest, not cohabitation and mutual tolerance.

If we could stop thinking in terms of capture,
we would not have to fear the loosening of the captives’ bonds and
our failing beauty, and he would not have ulcers about being outstripped
or belittled