"This strip of land where there are no unmarried women, or love matches, and where mathematics are considered an opinion, includes six hundred million people, half of whom, more or less, are women who live behind the darkness of a veil. More than a veil, it is a sheet that covers her from head to toe like a shroud in order to hide her from the eyes of all but her husband, her children, or a feeble servant. This sheet, which is called purah or burka or pushi or kulle or djellaba, has two holes for the eyes, or a fine mesh opening two centimeters high and six centimeters wide. The wearer gazes out at the sky and her fellow man like a prisoner peering through the bars of her prison.... It is the immense reign of Islam.... These veiled women are the unhappiest women in the world. But the paradox is that they don’t know it because they don’t know what exists beyond this veil that imprisons them."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Oriana Fallaci, quoted in De, S. C., & Harss, M. (2017). Oriana Fallaci: The journalist, the agitator, the legend. quoting The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman, 1961.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Women_in_Pakistan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Women in Pakistan
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Women in Pakistan →
Related Quotes
"In countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and to a lesser extent in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Tanzania…"
"A study published in June 2006 in the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, based on interviews with 300 women…"
"The number of incidents of violence against women increased by 13 per cent in 2009, says a report by the Aurat Founda…"
"PAKISTAN HAS the unique distinction of being the only South Asian country where it’s legal to discriminate against wo…"
"I’ll do everything I can to discourage polygamy—besides it causes no small economic problem. Often the wives are sepa…"
"It has been estimated that 1,000 women and girls from religious minorities are abducted, forcibly converted and then …"
"Clerics were gaining influence everywhere: In the bureaucracy, civil servants sought promotions with overt expression…"
"No one really knows how many thieves had their hands amputated, perhaps none; or how many people were flogged during …"
"The right to life of women (in Pakistan) … is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."
"The first thought a Western woman has when she arrives in a rigorously Muslim country like Pakistan is that she appea…"