A couple of quotes:
"When you are born a woman, you must live as a woman,". . . . "The quicker you understand that, the easier it will be to accept."
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Infidel pp 49
"because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be dependent–always–on someone treating me well."
pp 187
"It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own. I was not running away . . . I was just a young girl who wanted some way to be me"
pp 188
How fortunate was I to be born a woman in the United States, in a non-muslim family, with other options and other perspectives.
But even within the constraints of any given culture, why do some submit and some rebel, even from a very very early age.
I cannot conceive of not thinking that a person is not a full person because she is a woman. I don’t think this would have ever occurred to me, even as a very small child. On some basic level it would probably not occur to any person, so how and when is it programmed out, and why, in some does the programming fail to "take".
Even as a small American girl I dreamed of becoming a princess — standard fare — but I never dreamed of being rescued. Even when I was as young as 4, which is as far as I can confidently remember, it was always I who rescued myself and, often, the prince as well.
I am not offering comparisons here; there is no comparison between my life or my strength of character, and Ali’s. I cannot imagine the life she led, the choices she had to make. I applaud her strength. I am merely wondering why and how. Why does one question when another does not? Why does one one succeed and another fail? Or as someone dear to us used to ask "What makes it?"