Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

Margaret Atwood’s line is widely attributed to her 1982 essay “Writing the Male Character,” where she discusses gendered fears and power dynamics in social and sexual relations. The remark is often cited in conversations about misogyny, sexual violence, and the asymmetry of risk women face in everyday life—especially in dating and public spaces. Atwood’s broader point in the essay is about how men and women are socialized to perceive one another, and how those perceptions shape behavior, literature, and cultural expectations. The quote has since circulated far beyond its original literary-critical setting, becoming a shorthand for the difference between social humiliation and physical danger.

The sentence contrasts two fears that can arise in heterosexual dynamics: men’s fear of ridicule and women’s fear of lethal violence. Atwood is not claiming all men are violent or all women are vulnerable in the same way; rather, she highlights an imbalance in stakes. Being laughed at is a threat to status and ego, but being killed is a threat to life itself. The juxtaposition exposes how power and physical safety shape women’s choices—caution, avoidance, and self-protective behavior—while also critiquing cultural narratives that treat women’s fear as exaggerated or irrational. Its force comes from compressing a structural reality into a stark, memorable antithesis.

1) “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.”
2) “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them.”
3) “Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will murder them.”