Top Debora Spar Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Debora Spar Biography

Debora L. Spar is the former President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women affiliated with Columbia University. As President of Barnard, she was also an academic dean within Columbia University. Spar was appointed Barnard's 7th president in July 2008 and replaced Judith Shapiro, Barnard's 6th president, after a teaching career at Harvard Business School where she was Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development. Spar was appointed the 10th president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, beginning in March 2017, but announced her resignation in April 2018 after only about one year in the position.

Read about Debora Spar in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Debora Spar Quotes

I really don't see any men sitting in the corner office plotting to keep women out. All the men I know are actively trying to promote women, to get more women involved. These men have wives they care about; they have daughters they desperately care about. So I don't think it's fair to blame men - or I don't think it's accurate to blame men anymore.

Corner, Daughter, Keep, Men, Thinking

Feminism wasn’t supposed to make us miserable. It was supposed to make us free; to give women the power to shape their fortunes and work for a more just world. Today, women have choices that their grandmothers could not have imagined. The challenge lies in recognizing that having choices carries the responsibility to make them wisely, striving not for perfection or the ephemeral all, but for lives and loves that matter.

Feminism, Life And Love, Lives, Lying, Recognizing, Responsibility

I think what we need to do is to step back as a society and say okay, we've kind of turned things upside-down. We have moved away from the nuclear family, in which the man always works and the woman stays home. How are we going to rearrange things now? We've done the first part of the revolution, we've turned everything on its head, but we haven't figured out what structures will actually work in this new world.

Home, Man, Men, Thinking, Work, World

If you look at television shows, which of course are fictional so you don't expect them to be real, but they're constantly showing career women who are also successful mothers and also look gorgeous. And we fall into believing that these fictional lives are somehow accurate depictions of what our real lives should be about.

Believe, Constantly, Course, Mother, Real, Shows

I certainly want to be ambitious for women. I'm ambitious for myself. I think women can definitely find areas in which they want to excel.

Ambitious, Areas, Think, Thinking, Want

It was feminism that made it possible for women to go to the Ivy League and women to be astronauts and women to have their own TV shows. What happened, though, was that the generation after feminism, which is my generation, misunderstood what feminism was saying.

Feminism, Ivy, League, Shows, Though, Tv Shows

I think sometimes by portraying our lives as being too perfect, as being too balanced, we're actually selling younger women a bill of goods that's not true.

Bill, Bills, Lives, Perfect, Selling, Thinking

If two people have a couple of kids, somebody does have to take care of the kids. Somebody does have to cook dinner; somebody does have to do garbage duty. We need to take some time and give some thought, without being angry, to just thinking about what these new structures are going to look like.

Couple, Duty, Kids, Look, Thinking

You have to learn to say no not just to things you don't want to do, you have to say no to things that you want to do, things that are good to do. You have to realize that every time you say yes to one thing you've got to take something else off the plate. Critically, I think you have to realize that it's easier to say no than to say maybe.

Realizing, Say, Take, Thinking, Time, Want

We've reached the point where the demand for rules is about to replace the demand for chaos.

Chaos, Demand, Point, Reached, Rules

I think one thing that women can do is to just be more honest, with themselves and with their friends, and be more willing to say I'm really excited about this part of my life, but I'm screwing up over here, or this is a mistake I've made, or this is something I've given up on.

Excited, Honest, Mistake, Part, Say, Thinking

Women should feel more liberated to say you know what? I can't bake the cookies for the school bake sale because I just don't have the time. Or I'm really sorry, but I can't do this at work because I've got too much else going on this week. We have to be more up front in saying no, for lack of a better word, and then modeling that for others.

Cookies, Modeling, School, Sorry, Women

We need to have honest conversations among women and men to say how do we stop blaming each other? Because I'm not saying that every woman wants to be a corporate CEO. We need so that the women who are corporate CEOs get supported and they're not looking askance or down at women who make other choices in life.

Blaming, Choices, Honest, Men, Needs, Say

Don't take too much credit for your children - or too much blame!

Blame, Children, Credit, Inspiring, Take

'Maybe' is what gets us into trouble, because I think constantly women are saying I'll try to do it, maybe I'll do it, I'll do it if I can," and then they're feeling guilty when inevitably they can't do everything.

Constantly, Feelings, Maybe, Thinking, Trouble, Trying

Strive not for perfection. . but for lives and loves that matter.

Life And Love, Loves, Matter, Perfection