Fatema Mernissi

Consumerist ads brainwash us into individualist and egotistic self-love. ”

A woman can walk miles without making one single step forward. As a child born in a harem, I instinctively knew that to live is to open closed doors. To live is to look outside. To live is to step out. Life is trespassing. ”

In Morocco, for a woman to earn her own living is the essential concern. ”

In the 1920s, big names in the Arab world spoke of Scheherazade as an example for intellectuals fighting for their rights. She was a fighter for the right of free expression. ”

Now that Arab women are pouring into the streets by the million, men discover with dismay that they, not women, were the captives of the harem dream. ”

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. ”

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. ”

The Western man declares that in order to be beautiful, a woman must look 14 years old. If she dares to look 50, or worse, 60, she is beyond the pale. By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility. ”

The woman with dark hair, wide hips, and a few extra pounds has always been the essence of beauty in Morocco. ”

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. ”