Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes

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.

Medieval ways of treating women are introduced into a modern society and we’re just supposed to say “Aah, that’s really interesting, how ethnic.” No, it’s wrong and we want to fight it.

A lot of the hate mail I get is clearly misogynist. I am a proud liberal, feminist woman, and the hate mail I get about those three things is not about me.

For more than six thousand years the history of woman has been one of hopeless sadness. She moved only to the clank of chains, and her vain desire for better and higher things could not find expression, for woman was by force of circumstances inarticulate. Detraction of one sex and exaltation of the other became a habit of mind expressed in law, in religion, in literature as well as in the ordinary activities of everyday life.

Every religion oppresses women. I talk about the Koran because I know this book best. It allows for torture and other mistreatment, especially for women. And I despise the Sharia laws. They cannot be changed. They must be thrown out, abolished.

The oppression of women is based on custom and tradition—not religion.

The darkest page in history is the persecutions of woman.

Women's Lib? Poor little things. They always look so unhappy. Have you noticed how bitter their faces are?

Whether it's repro rights, violence against women, or just plain old vanilla sexism, most issues affecting women have one thing in common - they exist to keep women 'in their place.' To make sure that we're acting 'appropriately,' whatever that means.

But say some, would you expose woman to the contact of rough, rude, drinking, swearing, fighting men at the ballot box? What a humiliating confession lies in this plea for keeping woman in the background!

There is hardly any other sphere in which prejudice and superstition of the most horrific kind have been retained so long as in that of women, and just as it must have been an inexpressable relief for humanity when it shook off the burden of religious prejudice and superstition, I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open before them.

Women are born, living their lives, and dying without the justice which they have been waiting for since the time of the caveman.

[Writing about America:] Persecution for opinion ... are still as common as women who have opinions.

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.

Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.

The veil is the mask of Egyptian women in a power struggle against the dictatorship of men…. The veil gives women more power in a man’s world.

The Taliban Nightmare: A girl with a book.

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?

I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.

To me, saying you're not a feminist should be like saying you're a racist. It should be that politically unacceptable.

Too often, when Muslim women speak out, some in our 'community' accuse us of 'making our men look bad' and of giving ammunition to right-wing Islamophobes.

As a feminist of Egyptian and Muslim descent, my life's work has been informed by the belief that religion and culture must never be used to justify the subjugation of women.

The Islamic tradition does show some areas of apparent incompatibility with the goals of women in the West, and Muslims have a long way to go in their attitudes towards women. But blaming the religion is again to express an ignorance both of the religion and of the historical struggle for equality of women in Muslim societies.

Some suggest that, as a woman, I meddle in political affairs and need to be 'put in my place.'

Girls were nothing in the '70s.