Fatema Mernissi quotes

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 ugly. Thus, the walls of the European harem separate youthful beauty from ugly maturity. (Fatema Mernissi)
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 what they could not even dream of. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
I go to the hamam and put henna on my skin and hair. Even when I go to New York, I let the shower run hot to create a steam hamam at my hotel. But when I finish with the bath, I put on expensive French creams. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
There has been a terrible hemorrhage of educated women to the West where they can flourish. I understand, but it is terrible. We must stay home. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
The real mistake of women was to let the memoir, the collective, the history, space of producing history - to let it in the hands of men. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Writing is one of the most ancient forms of prayer. To write is to believe communication is possible that other people are good, that you can awaken their generosity and their desire to do better. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
The most precious gift God gave humans is reason. Its best use is the search for knowledge. To know the human environment, to know the earth and galaxies, is to know God. Knowledge (science) is the best form of prayer. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Nature is woman's best friend,' she [Yasmina] often said. 'If you're having troubles, you just swim in the water, stretch out in a field, or look up at the stars. That's how a woman cures her fears'. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
I am intelligent enough to be critical towards the West and take what I need and reject what is bad for me. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western women into a harem slave. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful. (Fatema Mernissi)
I, as a Muslim woman living in 1993, I want to have two things - the mosque and the satellite, both at the same time. And no one can mutilate me by telling me I cannot have the mosque or the Koran. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Maturity is when you start feeling the motion of zaman (time) as if it is a sensuous caress. p.216. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
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 impact. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
If women's rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Quran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
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 impact. I mean, when I write something in the press, the day after in the fish market, people will be discussing it. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Contrary to what many Westerners believe, Islam has a rich tradition of secular painting in spite of its ban on images. It is only in religious rituals that the use of pictorial representation is totally prohibited. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
So much of Islam is Judeo-Christianity. It's impossible to divorce them. Islam is 600 years after Christ. Thousands of years after Judaism. Christ, Moses, Abraham - they are all in the Koran. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Consumerist ads brainwash us into individualist and egotistic self-love. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
The Taliban is the Muslim version of the Salem witch trials. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Women are builders of civil society. We are the ones who are going to build it. You know why? We have no choice. Either you shut up, and you are humiliated, or you do what I'm doing. You scream. (Fatema Mernissi)
I was amazed to realize that for many Westerners, Scheherezade was considered a lovely but simple-minded entertainer, someone who relates innocuous tales and dresses fabulously. In our part of the world, Scheherezade is perceived as a courageous heroine and is one of our rare female mythological figures. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
Since all power from the seventh century on was only legitimated by religion, political forces and economic interests pushed for the fabrication of false traditions. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
To understand the fanatic rejection of women's liberation in the Muslim world, one has to take into account the time factor. Most of us educated women have illiterate mothers. The conservative wave against women in the Muslim world is a defense mechanism against profound changes in both sex roles and the touchy subject of sexual identity. View quote
Fatema Mernissi
If there is one thing that the women and men of the late 20th century who have an awareness and enjoyment of history can be sure of, it is that Islam was not sent from Heaven to foster egotism and mediocrity. View quote
Fatema Mernissi