Deborah Ellis Quotes

Let us recognize that we can no longer tolerate violent oppression of women in the name of religion and culture any more than we would tolerate violent oppression espoused by any other bully in the name of a twisted rationale.

We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.

Thus the regime has deprived Iranian women not just of their present rights, but also of their history and their past.

If women are being oppressed in Egypt or children are being forced to join armies in the Congo, for example, it is not only acceptable but wonderful for Americans to be concerned, outraged, and active.

The serious work for feminism in the 21st century is across the globe. Instead of retreating into "safe spaces" and focusing on their own imagined oppression, today's feminists should be reaching out to women's groups in the developing world.

We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for - it's ridiculous.

I realize now that I was a feminist and the minute I heard the word I certainly knew it meant me, but at that time I don't think we had the label yet. But there's no doubt about it that I was born a feminist.

So, when the discussion about not using the term feminist came up at a conference workshop, I couldn't believe it. The more I listened, the more I felt the need to express my passion about my identity as a feminist.

If we value what we've inherited for free - from other women - surely it's right morally and ethically for us to wake up and say, 'I'm a feminist. '

It's an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.

Blind submission in women is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue alike in women as in man.

While women may look different, as some wear suits and others wear saris, or some cover their hair while others wear their hair loose, women need to stand together because they all face the central point of discrimination, although the extremity of which may be different from Kigali to Kabul.

Women will no longer be silent when they suffer injustices against them.

The feminists who are aware of the effects of patriarchy realize that we are all in the same boat from the dangers of patriarchy, and that the oppression of women is universal.

My mother didn't want me to be a feminist, a radical, political person, because she was scared. She wanted me to be protected and safe, but my life never was.

Our mothers' generation fought so hard to change things and we're the first generation to benefit. And now you get girls in their twenties who say they're not feminists.

In some places women have all the rights they deserve and in others there are big restrictions - in some countries they even mutilate women.

To be a feminist is to be alive.

One's enemies are always talking about 'post-feminism.' It is a word invented by people who would like to do away with feminism.

I don't see women and think of them as competition or with judgment. Women really move me. I feel connected to all kinds of women. I am angry because I think we've been mistreated throughout history in different countries, including America. I admire women.

I was raised by a hardcore feminist.

Women have no government.

Let every woman ask herself, Why am I the slave of Man? Why is my brain said not to be equal of his brain? Why is my work not paid equally with his? Why must my body be controlled by my husband, giving me in exchange what he deems fit?

Unless the woman is liberated, there is no freedom in Iraqi land.

Women voting is like prostitution.