Reshma Shetty Quotes

It's possible that you have been told a time or 10 that you don't appreciate how tough your elders had it. It's true that, if you had been coming of age back in, say, 1960, you would probably be feeling more restricted, if only because you were doomed to spend your days in a skirt, nylon stockings and girdle.

Massachusetts women as a rule adhere too strongly to old-time conventions.

We're comfortable with women in certain roles but not comfortable with women expressing anger or fully accepting their power. The most daring question a woman can ask is, 'What do I want?'

I think, especially growing up in the South, we are taught that women are supposed to be soft, gentle and kind of just goes along with everything and is submissive.

Women are allowed to exist in this very narrow lane, but as soon as you step out of that lane, people want to stone you.

French women will always look up at a man, even if he is four inches shorter than she is.

'Who Fears Death' addresses the push and pull in African culture that powerful women face when their culture has certain duties and beliefs that can stifle them.

I thought it was very important that femininity wasn't lost.

Conservatism is affecting the way women perceive who they are in the world.

Though it's safe to say there are a whole lotta American gals who agree with the core ideals of feminism, they are somehow nevertheless watching 'Say Yes to the Dress' by the millions.

We Latin women are liberated from the neck up, not the neck down.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

A huge part of keeping women in their place has to do with creating a really limited definition of what a 'real' woman is like. And a ton of that what-makes-a-woman nonsense is attached to motherhood. Apparently, by virtue of having ovaries and a uterus, women are automatic mommies or mommies-to-be.

Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work.

Very often, people talk about mothers, and they think that mother has to lose her sexuality. Mother has to be plain. Mothers cannot be exciting. Mother should not be up on what's going on; she shouldn't know the jargon of the day. And I just find that so old-fashioned!

Women have to be pure and respectful.

How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut?

In Saudi Arabia, they always tell us we are queens. We are pistachios. You know the nut? Like something that is protected. So even if you have a very good education, restraints are put on women.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first began to think about what profession I should go into. It was 1978. I was seven and had just been handed over by the women of my family to the earnest and self-important gatherings of the men. I was no longer the responsibility of my aunts and older female cousins. I was now a man. This was a tragedy.

An African man should not do anything called housework or cooking.

People thought I was trying to say that women had no say, no rights. I was not saying that. I was saying that women had a role, a duty. When they want to have a say in government - though in Africa they are not expected to do that - they are not discouraged. They can do what they want to do.

In my village, people believed that women should stay in their homes. However, I followed my heart and showed them that I'll not succumb to their regressive ideals.

Owing to cultural beliefs, girls have been taught to be small, disappear and not take our full place in society. But that is not what we are meant to be.

Women throughout history have had to defy rigid conventions about what is and is not expected of them.

At a certain point the family moved to Jaipur, where no woman could avoid the doli or purdah. They kept her in the house from morning to night, either cooking or doing nothing. [My mother] hated doing nothing, she hated to cook. So she became pale and ill, and far from being concerned about her health, my grandfather said, 'Who's going to marry her now?' So my grandmother waited for my grandfather to go out, and then she dressed my mother as a man and let her go out riding with her brothers.