Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I am appalled to hear the defence of the niqab or burka in Europe. A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women's rights but who are now instead sacrificing those very rights in the name of fighting an increasingly powerful right wing. "

Related Quotes:

" My feminism does not demand that a woman have an equal opportunity to torture, alongside men. Torture is no less wrong because a woman, not a man, carries it out. "

Mona Eltahawy

Wrong

Men

Man

" Anti-U.S. sentiment has been born out of many grievances - support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets. "

" Muslim views are not a monolithic blob. "

Mona Eltahawy

Views

Muslim

" As an Egyptian-American, I want both sides of that hyphen to enjoy the forms of freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, as I want both sides of that hyphen to move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question, 'Why do they hate us?' "

" This ISIS group, they attack Muslims more than they attack anyone else. "

Mona Eltahawy

Group

Else

" I visited Libya in September 1996 for the 27th anniversary of the 'revolution' - a military coup that a 27-year-old Gadhafi led to topple the monarchy and since which he has ruled. Some were optimistic that Gadhafi's 'revolution' could herald a new Libya, but it didn't take long for his brutality to stamp out any such hopes. "

" The first time I wore a head scarf, I was 16. I looked and felt like a nun. I missed the wind in my hair. For me, it was not a comfortable thing to wear. "

Mona Eltahawy

Hair

Head

" Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism and militarism are inherently patriarchal and hierarchical. "

" I grew up looking at my parents as equals. "

Mona Eltahawy

Equals

Grew

" I was born in Egypt, and my family moved to London when I was seven. I grew up mostly in Clapham, where I also went to school after a brief stint in Whitechapel. "

" I was 15 when my family moved to Jidda from Britain in 1982. Living in Saudi Arabia was such a shock to my system that I like to say I was traumatized into feminism. "

" My parents' generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s. "

" The Tunisian revolution left every Arab dictator in fear; Egypt's toppling of Mubarak left them terrified - even one of the U.S.' best allies in the region could fall. "

" That morning of 11 September 2001, as we watched the twin towers crumble on live television, America and I would develop a bond that has proven deeper and more enduring - for better or worse, through sickness and health - than the one I had with my now ex-husband. "

" As Muslim women, we're not waiting for the president of the United States to open doors for us or to fight our fights. "

Mona Eltahawy

Waiting

Open

" Saudi authorities must launch a campaign about the safety of female pilgrims and the determination of the authorities to ensure every woman's safety. "

" Until the Saudi authorities who administer the holy sites take concrete steps to protect female pilgrims, we must protect each other. Men must stop assaulting us, yes. But women the world over, regardless of faith, know that until that happens, we are each other's keepers. "

" We have been under military rule since 1952, when a group of army officers overthrew Egypt's monarchy and ended Britain's occupation of the country. But that only replaced an external occupation with an internal one, in which favored sons of the armed forces replaced their uniforms with suits, a move meant to create a semblance of civilian rule. "

" The military belongs in its barracks, not our ballot boxes. "

" It was precisely my love of the First Amendment that made me join sidewalk activists in 2010 to support an Islamic community center's right to open in Lower Manhattan. "

Mona Eltahawy

Right

Support

" When we complain to Egypt's Western allies about whichever autocrat is in power, we are asked, 'But who is the alternative?' It is a question designed to frustrate. "

" My birth at the end of July 1967 makes me a child of the naksa, or setback, as the Arab defeat during the June 1967 war with Israel is euphemistically known in Arabic. "

Mona Eltahawy

Child

Birth

" It's one thing to be groped and harassed by passers-by, but when the state gropes you, it gives a green light that you are fair game. "

" The fight against racism must be seen as a revolutionary one. "

" I'm no fan of Sarkozy, but I support a ban on face veils because they erase women from society and are promoted by an ultra-conservative ideology that equates piety with the disappearance of women. "

" I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia. "

" For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict. "

" The price of toppling Gadhafi will be steep. But Libyans will topple him, and in doing so, they will bring down with him the castles of fear our dictators thought they had fortified. "

" The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. "

" We left Egypt when I was seven, and we didn't return until I was 21. My teen years were divided between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. Up until we left the U.K., it was like your regular teenage years. The one thing I remember is that I couldn't date. That was one thing my parents made very clear. "