"All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women’s sexuality…"

[beam me up scottie]

19. "Incredibly brave woman"

Yes she is.

You write that you were “traumatised into feminism” as a teenager. What do you mean by that?

My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult — all those hormones and everything – but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia…it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this. In the UK, my mother had been the breadwinner. I’d seen my parents side by side. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was basically rendered disabled. She was unable to drive, dependent on my dad for everything. The religious zealotry was so suffocating. And I had been raised a Muslim, I came from a Muslim family, but this was ultra-zealous. As a woman in Saudi Arabia, you have one of two options. You either lose your mind – which at first happened to me because I fell into a deep depression – or you become a feminist.

Were you anxious about the outrage you might provoke in some quarters by speaking openly about misogyny within your own community?

I’ve got a lot of hate… But it’s hate from people I’m glad I’m pissing off. As a woman with an opinion, you get a lot of shit.

There are plenty on DU who would attack her for her lack of respect for religion.

Fuck them.

How dare anyone dismiss another's anger?