1944-, British Sociologist, Author
Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.
Ann Oakley – [Mothers]
Families are nothing other than the idolatry of duty.
Ann Oakley – [Family]
Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.
Ann Oakley – [Housework]
If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.
Ann Oakley – [Love]
Men are the enemies of women. Promising sublime intimacy, unequalled passion, amazing security and grace, they nevertheless exploit and injure in a myriad subtle ways. Without men the world would be a better place: softer, kinder, more loving; calmer, quieter, more humane.
Ann Oakley – [Men]
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.
Ann Oakley – [Myth]
There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.
Ann Oakley – [Men and Women]