Daily Inspiration Quote by Katherine Dunn

A single word does most of the heavy lifting here: “still.” Dunn isn’t arguing that sexism exists in abstract; she’s diagnosing it as a cultural residue that refuses to die, a stain that survives policy changes, pop-feminist slogans, even “empowerment” marketing. The sentence is built like a dismissal of excuses. Not “some people think,” not “in certain places,” but “still permeates our culture” - an accusation aimed at the air we breathe.

The intent is surgical: name the paternalistic assumption beneath so many supposedly protective gestures. “Can’t take care of themselves” is the old script that justifies everything from over-policing women’s choices to underestimating their competence, all while posing as concern. Dunn’s phrasing catches how patronizing ideology often wears a friendly face: the boyfriend “just worried,” the employer “not sure she can handle it,” the lawmaker “keeping women safe.” It’s not hatred; it’s a chronic disbelief in women’s agency.

The subtext is that this belief is adaptable. It can show up in conservative purity politics, but it also sneaks into liberal spaces as condescension: the reflex to speak for women, to preempt risk, to frame autonomy as recklessness. “Permeates” implies diffusion, not a single villain - a system that reproduces itself through norms, jokes, bureaucracies, and storytelling.

Context matters with Dunn: as a novelist attentive to bodies, power, and American hypocrisy, she’s pointing at narrative as infrastructure. Culture “permeates” through the stories we tell about who gets to be capable, credible, and safe without supervision.