Dorian Gray Gender Quotes

My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4. Lord Henry says this to Dorian, while discussing Dorian’s interest in the actress Sibyl Vane. Dorian has told him that he is in love with the actress and that she is a genius. Henry shows his condescending and derogatory view of women. He also seems to suggest that men are at heart immoral.

Ordinary women never appeal to one’s imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4. Dorian Gray says that he has seen Sibyl Vane performing "in every age and every costume." While he has confessed love for Sibyl after seeing her on stage as Juliet he is clearly not in love with Sibyl the person. For she is not a real person to him, but a piece of art for him to admire. Ordinary women have no appeal to him, Dorian confesses. He goes on to say: "One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the Park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile, and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is!" Notice how Dorian is starting to speak like the cynical Lord Henry, like in the quote above, reflecting Henry’s growing influence on the young man.

Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. In order to rationalize and justify his brutal rejection of Sibyl, Dorian invokes Lord Henry’s teachings on women. They bear sorrow better than men, live on their emotions and take lovers in order to have scenes with someone. Henry’s influence over Dorian is very apparent here. Dorian is on the way to become a Lord Henry clone.

The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry says this to Dorian, after Dorian expresses the view that Sibyl if she had lived would have kept him straight. Henry goes on to say: "If you had married this girl, you would have been wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman’s husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject – which, of course, I would not have allowed – but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure." Henry is not a big fan of the institution of marriage, or of women.

I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry continues his toxic influence on Dorian, sharing with him more of his outrageously misogynistic views and inappropriate comments on women, which no woman could possibly agree with. He sees them as loving to be dominated, slaves to men, and actually appreciating cruelty. This is what one online book reviewer Caroline Asgard says of this passage on her Obscura Undead blog: "One quote that really stood out to me which I found disgusting, obviously said by Henry. This really shows you what a disgusting guy he is, and why Dorian turned out the way he did."

She is still décolletée…and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an edition de luxe of a bad French novel.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry is speaking to Lady Narborough about Dorian’s friend the infamous Madame de Ferrol. The passage continues with Henry’s sparkling dialogue: "She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief."

She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. White porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through fire, and what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry makes this comment about the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth, who is smitten with Dorian and has been invited by him to a party that he is hosting. This is typical of Henry’s disdainful view of women in general. Henry likes women to be vulnerable with "feet of clay" and not "too clever." Using two decorative arts metaphors he describes the Duchess as having white porcelain feet rather than feet of clay, so she is hardened by her experiences.

I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian, Chapter 16. Dorian says this to Adrian Singleton in the opium den. There are plenty of women who hate Dorian at this stage. We heard in Chapter 11 how women who once wildly adored him "grow pallid with shame or horror if Dorian Gray entered the room." A lot of Wilde’s wit in the novel is given voice through the character of Lord Henry. But sometimes, as in the case of this epigram, the witty Wilde speaks through Dorian.
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