Viola Davis Quotes

The problem with Muslim women is less that we cannot speak the language, but that no one listens to us.

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history.

People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.

I think that, by and large, the predominant voice we hear in rock music is a white male voice.

Men continue to misinterpret the second-rate status of women as implying a privileged status for themselves; heterosexuals think the same way about homosexuals; gentiles about Jews; whites about blacks; haves about have-nots.

Why is it when a woman makes a film or a movie stars a female cast it is labeled women-centric because it is not white, male and middle-class men?

I'm not finding fault or blaming the industry, but the heroes have always dominated the film industry.

In life, single women are the most vulnerable adults. In movies, they are given imaginary power.

We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.'

As a Muslim woman, I'm all too familiar with the media shorthand for 'Muslim' and 'woman' equaling Covered in Black Muslim Woman. She's seen, never heard. Visible only in her invisibility under that black burka, niqab, chador, etc.

This is what the media does with women. You try to divide and conquer women so you can intimidate and victimise them. This is why they don't make movies where a lot of women get to be on set together. It's about dividing.

Women have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion.

In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.

A lot of animated movies in the past have sort of relied on these archaic tropes on what the female characters in those movies can be and who they are.

Black women do not have as many positive images in the media as we should.

Awards shows are being pushed to shed their genteel limousine liberalism and embrace the race-gender-sexual identity agenda in full.

People just can't wrap their heads around two young black women in a major production.

To be a veiled Muslim woman on screen is a very scary minefield for me.

A lot of people think that intersectionality is only about identity. But it's also about how race and gender are structured in particular workforces.

I always thought that when I got into this business that I was going to have to downplay my Asianness and downplay my queerness, which is not an easy thing for me to do.

The cost of speaking out is so high for women, I understand why most decide not to.

Growing up, usually when I saw a black female on television, she was either a broken character or sidekick.

For the most part, it's straight white men running these labels and publishing companies.

I think as soon as you're a woman, or any minority doing something, you automatically become a representative for it, and I think a lot of brilliant women's interviews are being wasted on talking about what it's like being a woman.

In the past when I was on protests, it was always people shouting out of the cars, 'get a job, get a bath, get a haircut.' So, am I a dole-scrounging hippie, or am I middle class and privileged? Just by stepping forward, somehow you become scrutinized, rather than the actual issues that count.