Najat Vallaud-Belkacem Quotes

In some countries, women aren't allowed to wear a swimsuit.

The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides.

If you meet a woman in a burqa, she can't reply to your smile. It's a denial of identity.

The burkini is not some new line of swimwear. It is the search version of the burqa and it has the same logic: hide women’s bodies in order to better to control them.

I'm no fan of Sarkozy, but I support a ban on face veils because they erase women from society and are promoted by an ultra-conservative ideology that equates piety with the disappearance of women.

I wore the hijab - a form of dress that comprises a head scarf and usually also clothing that covers the whole body except for the face and hands - for nine years. Put more honestly, I wore the hijab for nine years and spent eight of them trying to take it off.

It was strange wearing the scarf and the hijab until I got used to it.

I think often the West does not understand the history and the privilege of wearing a hijab. They always think of oppression.

Every religion curbs women rights to some extent. Some countries acted against religions and put a ban on wearing hijab, which was also a violation of human rights.

The ethnocultural connotations of the burkini ban are very strong. It's as absurd as mandating that women have to go topless on the beach. If I were a woman, I definitely would not want to wear a burkini or a headscarf. But it's not about what I want.

Compelling a woman to wear a headscarf is against Islam, and compelling her to remove it is against human rights.

I write as someone who has no more time for repressive Islam than he does for repressive Christianity or Judaism, but at least look at the face in the hijab - and try to imagine the one beneath the niqab - before you depersonalise its wearer.

I would like to say how much I resent people who say of the Islamic Republic that this is our culture - as if women like to be stoned to death, or as if they like to be married at the age of nine.

Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.

Most Muslim women know it is fear and curiosity that cause people to stare. They know it is ignorance and stereotypes that cause people to suppose that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to speak English, pursue a career, work a remote control.

Female athletes are supposed to be toned down. You're always supposed to talk about the team and never stand out.

Honestly, because of the way women were treated, I wouldn't want to go back to Puritan times. I'm far too outspoken to be a woman in Puritan times.

It had never crossed my mind that a man could think he had the right to stop me from being who I was.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

All I did was ask for rights. I didn't attack anyone. I didn't harass anyone. I didn't oppose the system or the country or the authority. All I said is, 'Why can't I drive?'

It's unfortunate when people say you can't wear skirts or do item numbers, or a girl can't dress in a certain way. Are we going back to dark ages?

As an artist, I try and be controversial, and I have been a bit offensive at times. I have a view on the burka, and I'm sure a few of the Muslim girls and their families would have a view of me on stage in next to nothing!

I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken.

We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure.

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.