Women and Femininity Quotes in The World According to Garp

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore [...] If you don't fit in either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you. But, she thought, there is nothing wrong with me. (1.69)

Even Garp falls victim to this dynamic. He sees most women he interacts with as sexual objects, rather than as people with real lives and real struggles.

Quote #5

"I wanted a job and I wanted to live alone," she wrote. "That made me a sexual suspect." (6.3)

It's humorous—and a little depressing—that Jenny's parents assume she's a prostitute because she lives alone. If society says that women are merely sex objects, then women who don't have sex aren't given any value. Sigh.

Quote #6

As for Jenny, she felt only that women—just like men—should at least be able to make conscious decisions about the course of their lives; if that made her a feminist, she said, then she guessed she was one. (7.37)

Unlike her peers, Jenny doesn't particularly resent men—she just resents the things they do. Jenny's brand of feminism isn't intellectualized; it comes from the gut.