Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes

A lot of people in Islamic countries are taking it as a personal offense when people are talking about the violence against women in their culture.

I was traumatised in the medieval Afghan society at Sarana village by the local boys of Omar's Taliban who forced my in-laws to subjugate me for trying to be different. There can be Omars in other religions, too, who oppress women.

In the State of Israel, there are still women who suffer mental and physical violence just because they are women. Many people suffer mental and physical violence, but there is a certain section of the population that harasses women because they are women, and we must fight this vigorously. Anyone who infringes on the rights of women or their freedom, or who works to discriminate against women, works against the principles and ideals of the State of Israel.

The darkest page in history is the persecutions of woman.

Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they do. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women.

Women have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion.

In some countries, women aren't allowed to wear a swimsuit.

We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.

The patriarchy is alive and well in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

I think violence against women in America has become ordinary - it's been made absolutely acceptable.

Women become the objects of rules; they are repressed and lose their rights in the name of religion, or they lose their freedom in the name of tradition, while the state legitimates this foolishness with laws.

Violence against women is as American as apple pie.

We have to stop this violence. We have to make the political nature of the violence clear, that the violence we experience in our own homes is not a personal family matter, it's a public and political problem. It's a way that women are kept in line, kept in our places.

I have never seen a connection between cinematic violence towards women and actual violence towards women in society.

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.

It is rather ironic that society denies women certain rights under the pretext that they are emotional beings, and may become irrational when under pressure, while resorting to the emotions argument as an excuse for men's behaviour in honour crimes.

Congress has been pathetic. Not only did it fail to renew the Violence Against Women Act, but it has also stalled on the global version, the International Violence Against Women Act, which would name and shame foreign countries that tolerate gender violence.

You—the outside world—will be told that it is our “culture” and “religion” to do X, Y, and Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman.

Knowing the horror that most women have of anything approaching irreverence, the Bible has been called out to play the part of a scarecrow on the rich fields of men’s monopolies…Men have had the management of all things human for six thousand years…Has the result been so eminently successful that we need dread a little change?

The more I think on the present condition of woman, the more am I oppressed with the reality of their degradation.

Democrat women lead the way in showing other women how to be stepped on and diminished by men. That's what they do, for a payoff somewhere down the line.

In France, we respect women: we don't beat them; we don't ask them to hide themselves behind a veil as if they were impure.

It's very odd that we have such an easy relationship to violence in this country, and we're still shocked by the female figure.

The whole concept of witches was that women were speaking up for themselves and fighting for their rights. The whole concept of witchcraft came into play to hold down women and women's empowerment.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.