Violence Against Women Quotes

“No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“If we are to fight discrimination and injustice against women we must start from the home for if a woman cannot be safe in her own house then she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere.”
― Aysha Taryam

“It was much easier to explain the veil than to answer questions about the wounds.”
― Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

“Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“But people like the doll guy who sells women and the dog guy who buys women, and other guys who, say, rape women, or maybe don’t go as far as violent rape but treat women like objects instead of people—sure, there’s a difference in the level of crime, but it’s all the same thing, where women become a canvas for throwing emotional baggage, Jackson Pollock style.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“Self respect by definition is a confidence and pride in knowing that your behaviour is both honorable and dignified. When you harass or vilify someone, you not only disrespect them, but yourself also.
Street harassment, sexual violence, sexual harassment, gender-based violence and racism, are all acts committed by a person who in fact has no self respect.
-Respect yourself by respecting others.”
― Miya Yamanouchi , Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women

“This moment would define my memory of that night, and of the many nights like it, for a decade. In it I saw myself as unbreakable, as tender as stone. At first I merely believed this, until one day it became the truth. Then I was able to tell myself, without lying, that it didn't affect me, that he didn't affect me, because nothing affected me. I didn't understand how morbidly right I was. How I had hollowed myself out. For all my obsessing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me, that was its effect.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“I wish we'd be able to deliver our message at the global level on the need to recognize the past genocides in order to prevent new ones. Our message of peace and justice will hopefully reach every corner of the world.”
― Widad Akreyi

“He told me that if I hung up, he'd do it. He would commit suicide. He told me that if I called the cops he would kill every single one of them and I knew that he had the potential and the means to do it”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“Who knows, what I could become, if Leroy would stop goddamn hitting me.”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

“Puede que también haya una guerra constante y sigilosa, un caballo de Troya relleno de información cancerígena solo para un grupo de la población, pues no conoce cuentos clásicos, ni Historia del Arte, ni espectáculo público donde no se especifique que ellas — niñas y mujeres — no estaban en casa, sino en un bosque oscuro, o lavándose en un río...o en mitad de una carretera. Y que lo peor no habría sucedido de haber evitado esos mismos lugares que los hombres pisan con total tranquilidad.”
― Rosario Villajos, La educación física

“FGM is a cycle of oppression that can only be stopped through education and collective action”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“No woman should feel that her body is a mere vessel for others’ control. We deserve the right to our own choices.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“We cannot change the way society views women until we address the mixed messages we send about their value”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“When a girl is forced to endure such a violation, she learns to question everything about herself, her worth, her value, and her power.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“Through pain, I realized that healing is not just about removing scars; it is about reclaiming the voice stolen from you”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“You can break a body, but you can never break a spirit that chooses to rise despite the hurt.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“I had to learn the hard way that my body was my own, and no tradition or culture had the right to tell me otherwise.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“My journey taught me that the most powerful tool in overcoming trauma is the will to speak, the courage to be heard”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“When you take away a woman’s right to control her own body, you take away her very essence. But reclaiming that power is a revolution only she can lead”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“There is no shame in healing. The shame lies in allowing the silence of abuse to continue.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“No child should feel the burden of a society’s fear, and no woman should carry the weight of cultural oppression. We must teach them to rise above it.”
― Hagir Elsheikh, Through Tragedy and Triumph: A Life Well Traveled

“[A] mark on her face was a split lip, just starting to scab over, which had been caused by an irate-drunk resisting arrest a few days before. She'd felt no fear when dealing with the drunk, and didn't feel ashamed that he'd hit her. Why did she feel shame after being hit on by the sleazy businessman? He was the one with the sad, saggy grey underwear and the stubby little manhood. (p. 8-9)”
― Robert Bryndza, Nine Elms

“Todo el mundo le ha dado a entender a Catalina que cuando un lobo anda suelto, se encierra bajo llave a las cien ovejas y, si una se escapa, será culpa de la oveja que el lobo la encuentre porque está en la naturaleza del lobo asustar a la oveja, torturar a la oveja, matar a la oveja, zamparse a la oveja...pero nadie se pregunta si está en la naturaleza de la oveja quedarse encerrada hasta que deje de existir el lobo, ya que no parece que el lobo vaya a dejar de acechar jamás.”
― Rosario Villajos

“I thought of my mother, her life taken by a man who, if not a literal beast nonetheless, someone shaped by the shape of someone else's pain, who only knew to take that pain and try to give it to someone else, thinking it would take the pain away from himself.”
― Erika T. Wurth, White Horse

“the heavy-handed Met swinging its dicks around is hardly anything new”
― Hannah Sharland

“Similarly, there is a limit to how far you can go in anti-violence work without rejecting the principal institutions of masculine domination. In reaction to spates of accusations from enlisted women of sexual assault and harassment perpetrated by their male peers and officers, the US military has engaged trainers, including Katz, to conduct gender violence prevention and bystander intervention. Like the prevention of child abuse through the promotion of authoritarian fatherhood, anti-violence training with men whose job is to kill people - the epitome of toxic masculinity - is any oxymoron. These military projects also carry a strong whiff of Othering: soldiers should be respectful of "our" women, and even refrain from raping "enemy" women and girls, but it's okay to kill their fathers, brothers, or husbands and, if necessary, to blow up their homes and cities. These efforts are not working. Biannual Pentagon surveys show a stead increase in sexual assaults and harassment in military academies. "This isn't a blip, a #MeToo bump, or some accident," averred California Democrat Jackie Spier at a February 2019 House subcommittee hearing. "It's a clear illustration of a destructive trend and systemic problem.”
― Judith Levine, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Harm, Ending State Violence

“Not all men are abusive perverts, but toxic masculinity is tradition.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace