Women

"Equal rights are advanced when girls can avoid child marriage and enjoy equal access to education, both men and women can plan their families, and pregnant women no longer fear losing their jobs."

"On March 6, 1979, Khomeini declared that women working in government offices must wear the veil; “naked women” could not work in Islamic ministries. Two days later, for International Women’s Day, tens of thousands of women spontaneously came out and marched on the streets of Tehran chanting “In the dawn of freedom, there is an absence of freedom.” Some women were bareheaded, others veiled, including some in full chador, the all-enveloping black cloak that was worn only by the most pious and conservative. There were men, too, including some who formed a protective cordon around the women as they came under attack. Feminists from around the world flocked to the protests, including the American activist Kate Millett, the author of Sexual Politics. Soon as many as a hundred thousand women were on the streets. For six days, they protested the assault on their personal freedom. Rarely—if ever—had women organized so quickly and spontaneously after a revolution. But Iranian women in Iran had gained many rights under the shah, including the right to vote, to run for office (in 1963), and to wear whatever they wanted. In an effort at modernization, the shah’s father (the first Pahlavi to rule) had briefly tried to ban the veil altogether in 1935, but that forced conservative families to keep their daughters at home for modesty. The move was quickly reversed. What Iranian women wanted was the choice: to veil or not to veil."

"Women in Egypt and Tunisia and other nations have just as much right as the men to remake their governments, to make them responsive, accountable, transparent. We will certainly be watching and the world will watch."

"So that our daughters will know their bodies are their own. So our sons embody gentle strength. So they can dismiss both labels #WhyIMarch"

"No organisation should be allowed to question or ridicule Islamic values, norms of society, hijab or the modesty of Muslim women at the Aurat March or any other event held in connection with International Women’s Day as these acts hurt the sentiments of Muslims in the country.…"

"Women of the world want and deserve an equal future free from stigma, stereotypes and violence; a future that’s sustainable, peaceful, with equal rights and opportunities for all. To get us there, the world needs women at every table where decisions are being made. This year, the theme for International Women’s Day (8 March), “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world,” celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the gaps that remain. Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in of all areas of life drives progress for everyone. Yet, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making, as revealed in the UN Secretary-General’s recent report. Women are Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9 per cent of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality among Heads of Government will take another 130 years."

"Russian women began celebrating IWD in 1913... After the Russian Revolution, the day was declared a holiday in the Soviet Union. From there, it was primarily celebrated in communist countries such as China. On the heels of the U.S. civil rights movement.. and as leaders such as Gloria Steinem fought sex discrimination in the 1960s and ’70s, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women’s Year. In 1977 the U.N. officially marked IWD by inviting member countries to celebrate women’s rights and world peace on March 8. Today, IWD has corporate sponsors... But as the website points out, millennial women have lived in a time in which there are so many advances for women that they may think the battles fought by their second-wave feminist sisters have already been won. “The unfortunate fact,” it reads, “is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.”"

"Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman."

"Not a jealous man, but? Females lie."

"Misogynist — A man who hates women as much as women hate one another."

"The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself."

"Yet genius of a sort must have existed among women as it must have existed among the working classes. Now and again an Emily Bronte or a Robert Burns blazes out and proves its presence. But certainly it never got itself on to paper. When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without singing them, was often a woman."

"A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen."

"It may seem to be a long way from Blake's innocent talk of love and copulation to De Sade's need to inflict pain. And yet both are the outcome of a sexual mysticism that strives to transcend the everyday world. Simone de Beauvoir said penetratingly of De Sade's work that 'he is trying to communicate an experience whose distinguishing characteristic is, nevertheless its will to remain incommunicable'. De Sade's perversion may have sprung from his dislike of his mother or of other women, but its basis is a kind of distorted religious emotion."

"Not every attack is preventable, but the misogyny that drives them is. To stop all of this, we must trust women when they point out that receiving streams of death threats on Twitter is not normal and that online communities strategizing about how to rape women are much more than just idle chatter. There is no reason another massacre should happen."

"Feminists have been warning against these online hate groups and their propensity for real-life violence for over a decade. I know because I’m one of the people who has been issuing increasingly dire warnings. After I started a feminist blog in 2004, I became a target of men’s-rights groups who were angry with women about everything from custody battles to the false notion that most women lie about rape. In 2011, I had to flee my house with my young daughter on the advice of law enforcement, because one of these groups put me on a “registry” of women to target."

"Yeah. Ladies do ask for attention... In my experience, they pretend to give it, but it's generally a smoke screen for demanding it back with interest."

"Over the past decade, anti-women communities on the internet — ranging from “Men's rights movement” forums and incels to “pickup artists” — have grown exponentially. While these movements differ in small ways, what they have in common is an organized hatred of women; the animus is so pronounced that the hate-watch group Southern Poverty Law Center tracks their actions. The other dangerous idea that connects these men is their shared belief that women — good-looking women, in particular — owe them sexual attention. The incel community that Mr. Minassian paid homage to, for example, was banned from Reddit last year because, among other issues, some adherents advocated rape as a means to end their celibacy."

"When retailers in Western Europe produce these sorts of garments (i. e., the “burkini”) they are not “helping” women. They are pandering to the whims of male ultra-conservative religious leaders, and in so doing are tacitly endorsing the misogyny contained in all such religious edicts on female clothing. Like the well-meaning fools who rushed out to don a hijab in a show of solidarity (and lack of neural activity), it betrays those Muslim women in the community who do not wish to conform to whatever the most conservative and parochial voices of self-appointed leaders have ordained acceptable. These acts endorse and promote the worldview of those who suggest that women are to be treated like children or possessions. It severely undermines the voices of women who wish to live as authors of their own lives."

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad."

"I was attacked via nearly every facet of my online life by a loosely coordinated cyber mob. All of my social networks were flooded with a torrent of misogynist and racist slurs as well as threats of rape, violence and death. The Wikipedia article about me was vandalized with similar sentiments. When I publicly shared what was happening to me, the perpetrators responded by escalating their harassment campaign and attempting to DDoS my website and hack into my online accounts. They also tried to collect and distribute my personal info including my home address and phone number. They made pornographic images in my likeness being raped by video games characters which they distributed and sent to me over and over again. Attempts were made to discredit me and my project by creating and posting false quotes or fake tweets attributed to me. There was also a flash game developed where players were invited to “beat the bitch up”. Unfortunately I still receive threats and explicit images on a semi-regular basis. In December 2012, I gave a TEDxWomen talk where I discuss in more detail what happened, and how these large scale loosely organized Cyber Mob attacks operate."

"The Catholic Church has long since been a primary global carrier of the toxic virus of misogyny,.... Its leadership has never sought a cure for that virus, though the cure is freely available. Its name is equality."

"The desire of the sick to represent some form or other of superiority, their instinct for subterfuge, which leads them to subjugate the healthy - is there any place where it cannot be found, this desire for power of the very weakest? The sick woman especially; no one surpasses her in the subtleties of domineering, oppressing, tyrannizing. The sick woman, moreover, spares nothing, living or dead; she digs up everything, no matter how deeply buried (the Bogos say, 'Woman is a hyena')."

"Just as it sometimes happens that deformed offspring are produced by deformed parents, and sometimes not, so the offspring produced by a female are sometimes female, sometimes not, but male, because the female is as it were a deformed male."

"If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say these were all written by men."

"When women talk about any kind of misogynistic abuse, three things happen. We are told that we should stop making a fuss. We are told that it could be worse. We are told that other issues are more serious."

"Let me into your womb!"

"Kugtár ni kabaián, ilot ni kalantangan."

"To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"

"She’s a woman! She doesn’t know up from down!"

"Lesbianism is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in contrast to male homosexual behavior, which is expressly forbidden as a capital crime. The absence of discussion of lesbianism in this context has raised scholarly interest."

"Forever in love with the word. Lesbian. The slow sexuality of it, a snake in the mouth."

"At the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards (the awards the LGBT community gives to books ignored by straight book awards) not a single lesbian book nominated for best novel was published by a mainstream press. Our literature is disappearing at the same time we are being told we are winning our rights. How can we be equal citizens if our stories are not allowed to be part of our nation's story?"

"Lesbians are "dykes," not "dikes." We are not dams, although some people consider us damned."

"There is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love."

"Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian."

"For a woman to be a lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture, such at that of North America, is an act of resistance."

"Lesbianism is the ultimate expression of a feminist philosophy."

"Mama tied a blindfold over my eyes. The next thing I felt my flesh was being cut away. I heard the blade sawing back and forth through my skin. The pain between my legs was so intense I wished I would die."

"Female Genital Mutilation concerns us all. It is a crime that is being committed in many countries. With my worldwide campaign I want to raise awareness of this cruel practice. I want to contribute all I can to make it possible to finally eradicate FGM worldwide""

"As we do all of this work to counter the Islamist extremist ideology, let’s also recognise that we will have to enter some pretty uncomfortable debates – especially cultural ones. Too often we have lacked the confidence to enforce our values, for fear of causing offence. The failure in the past to confront the horrors of forced marriage I view as a case in point. So is the utter brutality of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)."

"The traditional form of excision is a practice totally banned by Islam because of the compelling evidence of the extensive damage it causes to women's bodies and minds."

"This practice is a ritual that has survived over centuries and must be stopped as Islam does not support it."

"FGC has traditionally been called "female circumcision," which implies that it is similar to male circumcision. The recognition of FGC's harmful physical, psychological and human rights consequences, however, has led to the use of the term "female genital mutilation" or "FGM," which distinguishes this practice from the much milder practice of male circumcision. Many women who have undergone FGC do not consider themselves to be mutilated and have become offended by the term "FGM." Recently, other terms such as "female genital cutting" (FGC) have increasingly been used."

"Tostan has for over 13 years chosen the term female genital cutting (FGC) based on what communities that are giving up the practice have told us: the term “cutting” allows them to accomplish more than the others because it is less judgmental and value-laden."

"Although it is a symbol of life, the female body is unfortunately not rarely attacked and disfigured, even by those who should be its protector and life companion."

"Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband."

"Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the clitoris (this is called Hufaad)"

"The man, who was probably an itinerant traditional circumciser from the blacksmith clan, picked up a pair of scissors. With the other hand, he caught hold of the place between my legs and started tweaking it, like Grandma milking a goat. "There it is, the kintir," one of the women said. Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement. "It's just this once in your life, Ayaan. Be brave, it's almost finished." When the sewing was finished, he cut the thread off with his teeth."

"I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of ... Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to."