"Women have the feeling that since they didn't make the rules, the rules have nothing to do with them"
About this Quote
Diane Johnson distills a wry, unsettling truth about power and legitimacy. When rules are designed without you in mind, it is easy to feel they do not bind you, either morally or emotionally. That reaction carries a double edge. It can be a gesture of self-preservation and quiet resistance, a refusal to internalize norms that have historically policed womens bodies, labor, and voices. It can also register as alienation: if the system excludes you at its creation, you become a stranger to the obligations it demands.
The line points to the historical reality that legal codes, workplace norms, and public morals were largely authored by men. Feminist theorists have long argued that such frameworks reflect a limited slice of human experience, often miscasting womens concerns as special interests or private matters. Under those conditions, detachment makes sense. It is a critique of legitimacy, not just an aversion to obedience.
Johnson, known for her sharp comedies of manners and expatriate tales like Le Divorce, often stages women navigating institutions that are both intimate and impersonal: marriage, courts, embassies, cultural etiquette. Her protagonists discover that rules are not neutral; they are narratives with authors. The feeling she describes animates the mixed strategies her characters use: subverting rituals, leveraging informal networks, or stepping outside the game altogether.
Yet the observation is also cautionary. If exclusion fosters disengagement, disengagement can entrench exclusion. A belief that the rules have nothing to do with you can become a self-fulfilling marginalization. The emancipatory alternative is not mere compliance but co-authorship: entering the arenas where rules are drafted, scrutinized, and revised. When women help write the script, the rules gain a broader moral reach, and the sense of estrangement gives way to investment. Johnsons aphorism captures the hinge between resistance and participation, diagnosing a fracture in civic belonging while hinting at the remedy: transform the alienation of the subject into the agency of the author.
The line points to the historical reality that legal codes, workplace norms, and public morals were largely authored by men. Feminist theorists have long argued that such frameworks reflect a limited slice of human experience, often miscasting womens concerns as special interests or private matters. Under those conditions, detachment makes sense. It is a critique of legitimacy, not just an aversion to obedience.
Johnson, known for her sharp comedies of manners and expatriate tales like Le Divorce, often stages women navigating institutions that are both intimate and impersonal: marriage, courts, embassies, cultural etiquette. Her protagonists discover that rules are not neutral; they are narratives with authors. The feeling she describes animates the mixed strategies her characters use: subverting rituals, leveraging informal networks, or stepping outside the game altogether.
Yet the observation is also cautionary. If exclusion fosters disengagement, disengagement can entrench exclusion. A belief that the rules have nothing to do with you can become a self-fulfilling marginalization. The emancipatory alternative is not mere compliance but co-authorship: entering the arenas where rules are drafted, scrutinized, and revised. When women help write the script, the rules gain a broader moral reach, and the sense of estrangement gives way to investment. Johnsons aphorism captures the hinge between resistance and participation, diagnosing a fracture in civic belonging while hinting at the remedy: transform the alienation of the subject into the agency of the author.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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