More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Let me tell you something. A man is the only way up in this world, even though he’ll climb a woman’s back to get there. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She finally understood why Fareeda had banned them from wearing the hijab outside of school, finally saw how fear could force you to change who you were.
She knew that the suffering of women started in the suffering of men, that the bondages of one became the bondages of the other. Would the men in her life have battered her had they not been battered themselves? Fareeda doubted it, and it was this awareness of the hurt behind the hurt that had enabled her to see past Khaled’s violence over the years and not let it destroy her.
Perpetuation and rationalization of abuse
Better to be grounded, to know your place, than to live the way these Americans lived, cruising from day to day with no values to anchor them down. It’s no wonder they ended up alone—alcoholics, addicts, divorced.
“It’s not strange at all,” Sarah said. “It’s the loneliest people who love books the most.”
“Mothers carry the entire family—arguably the entire world—on their shoulders. That’s why heaven lies under their feet.”
Fareeda knew that no matter what any woman said, culture could not be escaped. Even if it meant tragedy. Even if it meant death. At least she was able to recognize her role in their culture, own up to it, instead of sitting around saying “If only I had done things differently.” It took more than one woman to do things differently. It took a world of them.
