One cannot understand what's happening to women in the Middle East if they don't realize that the mothers are a strong, progressive force. The mothers push the daughters to get out of the harem, to get the education, to achieve… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
“If your idea disturbs a conservative man, hang onto it," I said to myself. "It will probably lead to important discoveries.” — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
Morocco is such a beautiful place. It's incredibly beautiful. And also it is captivating place because for a writer, you feel that you make… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
“Once I asked Mina why she danced so smoothly while most of the other women made abrupt, jerky movements, and she said that many of the women confused liberation with agitation. 'Some ladies are angry with their lives,' she said 'and so even their dance becomes an expression of that.' Angry women are hostages of their anger. They cannot escape… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share
One cannot understand what's happening to women in the Middle East if they don't realize that the mothers are a strong, progressive force. The… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility. In fact, the modern Western man enforces Immanuel Kant's nineteenth-century theories: To be beautiful, women have to appear childish and brainless. When a woman looks mature and self-assertive, or allows her hips to expand, she is condemned… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share
I am intelligent enough to be critical towards the West and take what I need and reject what is bad for me. — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
Maturity is when you start feeling the motion of zaman (time) as if it is a sensuous caress. p.216 — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
“Mothers should tell little girls and boys about the importance of dreams,' Aunt Habiba said. 'They give a sense direction. It is not enough… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
Someone else is going to read for me or go at my place to the mosque, and/or to tell me you shouldn't take anything… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
I, as a Muslim woman living in 1993, I want to have two things - the mosque and the satellite, both at the same… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
The most precious gift God gave humans is reason. Its best use is the search for knowledge. To know the human environment, to know… — Fatema Mernissi Copy Share Image
