“They don’t live in the real world, we tell ourselves fondly: but what kind of criticism is that?
If they can manage not to live in it, good for them. We would rather not live in it either, ourselves.
And in fact they don’t live in it, because such women are fictions: composed by others, but just as frequently by themselves, though even stupid women are not so stupid as they pretend: they pretend for love.
Men love them because they make even stupid men feel smart: women for the same reason, and because they are reminded of all the stupid things they have done themselves, but mostly because without them there would be no stories.
No stories! No stories! Imagine a world without stories!”
―
Margaret Atwood,
Good Bones
