Daily Inspiration Quote by Julie Burchill

Burchill’s line is a provocation dressed up as a party trick: feminism, she suggests, isn’t just a politics of rights but a politics of nerves. The point isn’t that feminists literally want men trembling in corners; it’s that men’s comfort has long functioned as an unofficial public good, protected by etiquette, gatekeeping, and the expectation that women’s anger be made palatable. “Frightening men” names the moment that comfort gets revoked.

The joke works because it flips the usual script. For decades, women have been taught to manage male emotions: don’t embarrass him, don’t emasculate him, don’t be “shrill,” don’t make it awkward. Burchill turns that emotional labor into its opposite: the thrill of refusing to reassure, of letting the tension sit there, unsoothed. It’s not fear of violence she’s celebrating; it’s fear of losing status, fear of being judged, fear of not being centered.

There’s also a tabloid-smart understanding of media dynamics here. As a journalist and cultural brawler, Burchill knows outrage is a megaphone: the line baits a certain kind of man into proving her point by reacting defensively, and it baits a certain kind of critic into treating feminism as a temperament problem rather than a material one. The subtext is cynical and strategic: if power listens only when it’s unsettled, then unsettling becomes not a side effect but a tool.