Gioconda Belli Quotes

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?'

Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity, and to liberty.

I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.

The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear.

La Mancha is a very macho, chauvinistic society. I saw very clearly that my life had to be in Madrid, and I liberated myself from my mum and dad after high school.

I think a lot of people love to convolute what everyone else does in order to disempower women.

I can hear the roar of women's silence.

I would definitely say I'm a feminist. To me, it just means being attentive and mindful. It's about equality and equal treatment. It feels like a gut instinct.

The law protects you from being abused. It doesn't threaten your lifestyle for someone else to have the right to exhibit their lifestyle.

I'm a feminist, a 21st-century feminist - which means choice and freedom. One has the right to be both glamorous and ethically structured.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.

From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for 'perfection.'

Women are born, living their lives, and dying without the justice which they have been waiting for since the time of the caveman.

A group oppressed, is a group enslaved ….Whenever a group, a community of people, in unison, feels that it is being oppressed, and that it wants to control its destiny, then that community has a moral right to seek effective redress, or demand to control its own destiny as appropriate

Don't knock a man down and then ask him why he lives in the dirt.... Don't filch a man of his authority, his right to rule his home, his dignity as a man, and then ask him why his culture is substandard.

If “all men are born free,” how is it that all women are born slaves?

The darkest page in history is the persecutions of woman.

The Taliban Nightmare: A girl with a book.

I am persuaded that the rights of woman, like the rights of slaves, need only be examined to be understood and asserted.

I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion — to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge — in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.

I've always felt very strongly about human rights for blacks, women, and gays. Our Constitution is about equality for all - that's got to mean something to all of us.

It is so sad that it takes so long for people to understand what needs to happen in order to be free.

Women's rights are nothing but a part of the bigger picture, which is human rights. Women are trusted with the lives of their kids, even serve as teachers and doctors, but they aren't trusted with their own lives.