Emily Maitlis Quotes

The power of the word in Morocco belonged to men and to the authorities. No one asked the point of view of poor people or women.

Knowing the horror that most women have of anything approaching irreverence, the Bible has been called out to play the part of a scarecrow on the rich fields of men’s monopolies…Men have had the management of all things human for six thousand years…Has the result been so eminently successful that we need dread a little change?

To empower women, power must be given to them, presumably by an entity that already has it. And that entity is the patriarchy. This also implies that women must be on the receiving end, waiting - politely - to be empowered. Very Victorian-era courtship, isn't it?

Only when the oppressed are heard can we have an honest solutions based dialogue.

The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don't want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence.

Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions.

When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

There are times in history where a particular doctrine becomes a symbol of a greater problem.

When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you're telling them that they're less than somebody else.

It's mainly a few elite women who benefit greatly from standing with the forces that keep women down.

The personal is political, but only to a point.

All oppression creates a state of war.

The wrong people will do everything in their power to guarantee that the wrong political climate will continue. It seems, then, that the wrong people ensure the wrong political climate and the wrong political climate ensures the wrong people. How then to break free of this vicious circle?

One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.

Power doesn't just exist. It is threaded through different mechanisms of control. I'm interested in those complexities. But I want to address that in very forthright language and sometimes with images.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

If we accept the rule of those who think they are the bosses and lords of Mexico, nothing will change for the people on the bottom.

I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

'The Magician's Apprentice' was about someone from the low end of society manifesting magical power and how that completely messes up the balance of the whole system.

The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.

I do think that this planet is a totally unjust planet. I mean throughout history - history paints a beautiful picture when it's written by the victorious, but it's a planet that belongs to the strong and the more able, and usually they are tyrants. So basically, I don't see justice happening to the crushed and the weak.

It is impossible for white men to live with the coloured races without adopting a conviction that…they have the right to command the services of the less civilized.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.