"Balls are to men what purses are to women"
About this Quote
The comparison does two things at once. First, it mocks macho fragility: “balls” as the supposed seat of courage becomes a coin purse men constantly guard, brag about, and fear losing. The joke is that the hyper-masculine symbol is treated like a handbag: accessory, status marker, portable proof of self. Second, it needles the way women have been trained to understand themselves through objects. Purses aren’t just “things women carry”; they’re class signals, identity kits, and sometimes armor. By yoking them to anatomy, Parker exposes how ridiculous it is that either gender gets reduced to a container.
The subtext is savvy, not gentle. It’s flipping the gaze: men get pinned the way women have long been pinned - simplified, evaluated, and teased for what they’re presumed to prize. In the Sex and the City era, when talk-show frankness about sex and shopping was a kind of cultural sport, the line works as a two-way satire: it ridicules male posturing while quietly admitting how tightly consumer culture scripts femininity. The sting comes from its symmetry. Nobody gets out of being commodified.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Parker, Sarah Jessica. (2026, January 17). Balls are to men what purses are to women. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/balls-are-to-men-what-purses-are-to-women-63152/
Chicago Style
Parker, Sarah Jessica. "Balls are to men what purses are to women." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/balls-are-to-men-what-purses-are-to-women-63152/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Balls are to men what purses are to women." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/balls-are-to-men-what-purses-are-to-women-63152/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.











