Ayobami Adebayo Quotes

For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.

It's an interesting point about sisters not getting the same attention as parents and children, and even brothers. I suspect it's just because women didn't count that much and weren't the ones writing the accounts.

World's children cannot wait any longer. While international community debates and issues recommendations, statements and fine speeches, world's children - marginalised, socially excluded, poor and vulnerable - continue to suffer.

My only model for being a father was my father, an illiterate on the margin of society.

In the case of maternal health care, you look at, well naturally, it's the mother who's the customer, who makes the decisions. But in truth, the mother in many areas, in certain parts of India, the mother has very little decision-making power at all. The real decision-maker is the mother-in-law.

I don't know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it's more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they're a woman and people don't want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society.

All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different.

Men should think twice before making widow hood woman's only path to power.

England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses.

Looking back, I can see that the women I loved, at least early on, were status symbols. I suppose, in that sense, I was my mother's true disciple. She'd taught me that a good man, though elusive, could transform one's whole life once he was caught.

The ability of women is not known because they are relegated to the business of procreation, child-rearing, and breast feeding.

Poor men's words have little weight.

In our family, the men have always stood at the head, true patriarchs that take the lead, teach, and live their lives as examples... Women have a significant role as helpers to our husbands and co-counsels in the parental equation.

The dominance of daughters in the country has started rising. This is a good social change.

Being born a girl in India, it matters a lot what family you are born into.

It's a mistake to think that there's a difference between someone on the street and someone not on the street.

As it has turned out, the whole relationship between men, women and children has tilted, to the disadvantage of women.

Patriarchy is based on appropriating rights and leaving responsibility to others.

Women being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the walls.

There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.

The American woman's inequality with men is proved by her defiant attitude.

My father was a patriarch inside a matriarchy, but never knew it.

Whatever a 'superior' group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever an 'inferior' group has will be used to justify its plight. Black men were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be 'stronger' than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be 'weaker.

[Partly as a consequence of male authority] prestige value always attaches to the activities of men.

The family is the basic cell of government: it is where we are trained to believe that we are human beings or that we are chattel, it is where we are trained to see the sex and race divisions and become callous to injustice even if it is done to ourselves, to accept as biological a full system of authoritarian government.