Quotes About Women

So it is with Moslem women and their veils,' Michelangelo said. 'When they saw Muhammad's wives wearing veils, they sought to imitate them, and so now nearly all Islamic women wear veils even though there is no stipulation in their Holy Koran that they do so.

That's not the whole of it. As with many other faiths—including our own Christian one—a small group of zealots have distorted Islam to further their own agenda. When many women took to imitating the fashions of the Prophet's wives, some Moslem men saw an opportunity to put all women under their thumb. They espoused foul laws like those allowing a man to beat his wife or force her into his bed.

It is certain in theory that the only moral foundation of government is, the consent of the people. But to what an extent shall we carry this principle?" he wanted to know. "Women will demand a vote," he intoned with horror, as might "every man who has not a farthing.

American women are evolving backward--becoming more focused on their looks than ever. Feminism has been defeated by narcissism.

It is men's worst fear, personally and professionally, that women will pin the sin on them.

Ah, he said. I had an . . . artistic disagreement with the director of the panto. As it happens, I take issue with the objectification of women in Cinderella, and the reliance on shoes as a means of identification. Surely you understand.

What do you suppose those women are after but the same thing as the chaser—the desire to gain their own value from the number and fame of the men they conquer? Only it's one step phonier, because the value they seek is not even in the actual fact, but in the impression on and the envy of other women.

in the wisdom of women the Golden One had understood more than we can understand.

Do I strike you as a man with a miserable inferiority complex?" "Good God, no!" "Only that kind of man spends his life running after women.

You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel—because you are able to have summer flowers and half-naked women in your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren't for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain.

These supposedly better-for-women dictators were not opposed to imprisoning women or using sexual violence—gang rapes, virginity checks—to punish women who opposed them. For women who wanted more—more dignity, more public and civic influence, more room to practice their religion—the status quo had no room for them.

In January 2016, Cameron established a new fund for teaching English to Muslim women. He warned that those who failed language tests after a couple of years might be deported, because non–English speakers were "more susceptible to the extremist message coming from [ISIS]." The approach was something akin to integration at gunpoint: The more English you know, the less likely your kids will be to blow themselves up.

Islam was too big a religion for such constraints against women, and too noble a religion to countenance viewing non-Muslims with contempt, she thought.

Had they stayed in Pakistan and moved to cities, being exposed to education and work in a language they already spoke, the women in these families might have arguably secured greater independence and decision making than they did in Britain. Two generations after arrival, British Muslim women often remained less educated and less likely to work than women from British Indian families of Hindu or Sikh background, who had emigrated from urban centers and were already better educated.

She could not attend her university, which was closed; she could not earn money, because public work for women, save a few specialized jobs, was forbidden; she couldn't even go on a walk through the neighborhood and watch the finches dart from tree to tree.

In Syria, being poor narrowed the world, especially for women. Dua never could have hoped to attend university, couldn't even have explained, probably, what a marketing course would entail or set her up for.

To the public, they were either naive jihadi brides or calculating monsters. But most of the women in this book were neither passive nor predatory, and trying to pin down their degree of agency seemed to be only one line of inquiry, and certainly not the most revealing. Some collaborated or acted knowingly; some were so young that, despite the outward appearance of deliberate choice, they were not mature enough to exercise anything approaching adult judgement.

Revenge has probably been the most regular and prominent cause of fighting cited in anthropological accounts of pre-state societies. Violence was activated to avenge injuries to honour, property, women, and kin. If life was taken, revenge reached its peak, often leading to a vicious circle of death and counter-death.

Even if some women were physically and mentally capable of participating in a warrior's group, this very rarely happened.

She resented the fact that her veil, which to her was a symbol of scared relationship to god, had now become an instrument of power, turning the women who wore them into political signs and symbols.

She resented the fact that her veil, which to her was a symbol of her sacred relationship to God, had now become an instrument of power, turning the women who wore them into political signs and symbols. Where do your loyalties lie, Mr. Bahri, with Islam or the state?

As we grown-ups talked and speculated, my five-year-old daughter looked intently out of the window. Suddenly she turned around and shouted, Mommy, Mommy, he is not dead! Women are still wearing their scarves. I always associate Khomeini's death with Negar's simple pronouncement—for she was right: the day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution. Until then, we would continue to live with him.

The most important result of the encounter [in the preceding anecdote] is the scholar's startling discovery of the roundness of the earth . . . Instinctively realizing the connection between the foreigner's presence, the roundness of the earth, and future changes and upheavals, he finally announces, Yes, the earth is round, the women will start to think, and as soon as they begin to think, they will become shameless.

But it was women like Rudabeh who planted in my mind the idea of a different kind of woman whose courage is private and personal. Without making any grand claims, without aiming to save humanity or defeat the forces of Satan, these women were engaged in a quiet rebellion, courageous not because it would get them accolades, but because they could not be otherwise. If they were limited and vulnerable, it was an audacious vulnerability, transcending the misogyny of their creator and his times.