Our Women on the Ground Quotes

“The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don’t belong to English
though I belong nowhere else,
if not here
in English.
—GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT, “BILINGUAL BLUES”
― Christiane Amanpour, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“Those sorts of stories accumulated until they formed an archetype: the tragic yet resilient Iraqi woman, a metaphor for the country itself. In hindsight, it seems so facile to see Iraqi women only through the prism of their war-ravaged lives, but how else do you report a story where pain is etched on the face of every woman you interview?”
― Zahra Hankir, Our Women on the Ground: Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“That day, I came to a stark realization. I was afraid of men, and the harder I fought, the more intense the fear became. I can't think of an experience that is more harrowing than a woman being sexually harassed or assaulted by a man.”
― Zahra Hankir, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“It's because I'm tired of being branded a terrorist; tired that a human life lost in my country is no loss at all.”
― Hannah Allam, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“I found it a condescending expectation—that my words and mannerisms would meld into the mainstream around me—but it was also a fair question: how do you retain so strongly strands of somewhere or something you have never lived? - Nour Malas”
― Christiane Amanpour, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“Gender is a bodily discourse - repetitively performed, so as to become real and accepted - as opposed to a sheer identity that requires a fixed representation.”
― Lina Attalah, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“Every time Iraq began to unravel, it was women who worked the hardest to stitch it back together.”
― Zahra Fatima Hankir, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“The essential Arab concept of maintaining dignity seemed alien to all but the savviest of soldiers”
― Zahra Fatima Hankir, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World

“Syria: never the country I called home, but certainly my homeland. - Nour Malas”
― Christiane Amanpour, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World