Manal Al-Sharif

“So you’re the infamous Manal al-Sharif,” he said, eyeing me from behind his desk. “Aren’t you ashamed of what you did?”“Is driving a car something shameful?” I answered back.”

“I got a text from my husband. “Manal, you are divorced,” it read. “Your papers are in the court of Khobar.” I was divorced in my absence, just as I had been married.”

“How odd it is that we judge a woman by her clothes and the place she eats lunch and the subjects she talks about with her colleagueson her coffee break, yet we don’t judge a man if he doesn’t grow his beard or if he works with women or speaks to them. Why do Saudi women allow subjugation to a man and adhere to men’s rules and conditions? Why did I?”

“My scars teach me that I am stronger than what caused them.”

“Freedom is to live with dignity”

“This is what happens when the state intervenes in a person’s private life; it creates two separate personas. It compels you either to lead two separate lives, or to violate what’s imposed on youwhen the state isn’t looking.”

“I was lonely, desperate, and angry. At that moment, I truly understood what it meant to be a Saudi woman. It meant being confronted with every possible kind ofobstacle and discrimination. It meant being told that if you want to race with men, you’d have to do it with your hands and legs cut off. I started to wish I had been born somewhere—anywhere—else.”