'Women are builders of civil society': A speech by the late Fatima Mernissi

Fatima Mernissi was a feminist who spent her life trying to improve the lives of Muslim women. She was a sociologist in Morocco, known for her best-selling book Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society.    

Mernissi died Nov. 30 in the Moroccan capital of Rabat. She was 75.

Either you shut up and you are humiliated or you do what I'm doing. You scream.- Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist

In 1994, Mernissi was invited to a forum in Washington on human rights and culture in the Muslim world. She spoke about her anger over her experience at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo earlier that year, in which women were excluded by men during a discussion on the rights of women in education.

In her speech, she says, "Women are builders of civil society. We are the ones who are going to build it. You know why? We have no choice. Either you shut up and you are humiliated or you do what I'm doing. You scream."

Click Listen to hear the whole speech, from our archives.