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Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western women into a harem slave.

— Fatema Mernissi

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More quotes by Fatema Mernissi

But since then, looking for the frontier has become my life’s occupation. Anxiety eats at me whenever I cannot situate the geometric line organizing my powerlessness.”

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

But when your situation is hopeless, all you can do is turn the world upside down, transform it according to your wishes, and create anew.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

She would take him to faraway lands to observe foreign ways, so he could get closer to the strangeness within himself.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful.

The French do not imprison their wives behind walls, my dear mother-in-law,' she would say. 'They let them run wild in the local souk (market), and everyone had fun, and sill the work gets done'"

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Fatema Mernissi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.