Sania Mirza Quotes

There are certain images attached to an Indian woman - a mother, daughter, homemaker... there are certain parts of it that I really like, and I love having that identity also, but I feel women shouldn't be limited to that.

Any woman who wishes to smash into the world of men isn't very feminine.

Why don't we focus on what Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our grandmothers.

Whenever a female takes a strong stand for herself, the majority of the time they have to really, really narrow it down to being feminine and wearing dresses and just being lipstick chic.

Rich cultures, patriarchal cultures, value thin women, like ours; poor ones value fat women. But all patriarchal cultures value weak women. So for women to become physically strong is very profound.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

The reason why women effect so little and are so shallow is because their aims are low, marriage is the prize for which they strive; if foiled in that they rarely rise above disappointment.

My strong sense now is that, as women have become more equal in society, so their depictions onscreen have become lamer and lamer and lamer, to the point that it's an embarrassment.

I won't say there aren't 'smart' roles for women, but the variety is limited. I feel the real representation is not widely available in Bollywood.

Aside from introducing and supporting legislation to help close the gender gap in STEM, I believe that shining the spotlight on female role models is one of the best ways we can break the gender stereotype.

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.

Women are the strong people in this world, not men. I think TV is finally catching up with that reality, and thank God.

I think more girls feel encouraged when women from their community do well. Especially in a place like Haryana, where people presume that women are looked down upon.

Historically, and even now, women have been asked to give up on their dreams way more than men, mostly - because it's sort of like you're supposed to once you become a wife and mother. That's a generalization; that's what the mentality has been.

Woman is shut up in a kitchen or in a boudoir, and astonishment is expressed that her horizon is limited. Her wings are clipped, and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly.

Even in the first world, expectations are not as high for women as they are for men. We get that message subtly, but in the third world, it isn't subtle. Girls are isolated and encouraged not to talk to one another.

As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I've spent my whole life fighting tradition. There's no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.

Since a very young age, my mother made sure to tell me about the plight of women... As she raised my awareness about women's issues, she also made sure to ingrain in me the importance of being strong and independent and not to let anybody define me by their images of what women should be.

I think Hillary Clinton has made great strides in doing so, even though there are people who want to bring us back to the '50s and still define a woman by her husband and her husband's legacy. But she has proven herself to be a force on her own and is an example to us of how women should and can be judged on their own merits.

There's still a lot of misogynist pop music out there, and I think that hearing something that's so explicitly feminist and so angry - when we're still growing up in a culture where girls and women are not supposed to be angry - is a real revelation for young women.

Music is a male-dominated field. Women are not always taken as seriously as we should be, so sometimes we have to put our foot down.

In Saudi society, women are extremely respected. I never had an issue with that at all.

There's nothing wrong with women saying that we can be ambitious and that we can want the same things that men have traditionally wanted.

Society is really coming to a point where they're not asking if women can be funny anymore. We all know they obviously are.

I think that there are a lot of male writers and directors in Hollywood, and a lot of the female characters you do see are really one-dimensional, but I think that's changing more and more as there are more women taking control in Hollywood.