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Shahida Arabi

800 Quotes
Bestselling Author. Content Writer for Thought Catalog. Quotes about empowerment, healing, victory.
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800 quotes curated by Shahida Arabi:

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Tagged: Independence, Power, Agency, Free Will, Freedom
“Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?”
— Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Tagged: Alliteration, Natural Imagery, Vitality, Cultivation, Growth, Inner Life
“A final scenario describes the incipient codependent toddler who largely bypasses the fight, flight and freeze responses and instead learns to fawn her way into the relative safety of becoming helpful. 

She may be one of the gifted children of Alice Miller’s Drama Of The Gifted Child, who discovers that a modicum of safety (safety the ultimate aim of all four of the 4F responses) can be purchased by becoming useful to the parent. Servitude, ingratiation, and forfeiture of any needs that might inconvenience and ire the parent become the most important survival strategies available.”
— Pete Walker
Tagged: Fawn Response, Trauma Survival Strategies, Annotation Examples, Complex Trauma, Defense Mechanisms, Fight or Flight, Fawn or Freeze, Narcissistic Parents, Children of Narcissistic Parents, Children of Narcissistic Fathers, Children of Narcissistic Mothers
“When people constantly decry the lack of focus on women’s agency and what she could’ve done to 'prevent' herself from being a victim of rape, they forget that a woman’s agency and her ability to consent is already compromised by the way she has been shaped and constrained by her society and culture, not to mention the effects of trauma.”
— Shahida Arabi, There Is No Such Thing As A ‘Perfect’ Rape Victim – And Why It Shouldn’t Matter In The Era Of #MeToo
Tagged: MeToo, Sexual Assault Awareness, Rape Culture, #metoo, The Agency of Women, Quote of the Moment
“There’s a reason many women try to be as soft as possible with men, to use padded and flowery language, to be gentle and tender in talking— it’s because most women learn early on that the slightest sign of discontent, of anger, of displeasure from women means repercussions from men.”
— Dominique Matti
Tagged: Appeasement, Gender Socialization, Rape Culture, Consent, Complexity of Consent, MeToo, #metoo
“If a woman uses the word “forced” to describe in any way what you are doing, THAT IS HER SAYING NO.”
— Fiona Longmuir  
Tagged: Rape Culture, Consent
“If a woman is physically removing your hands from her body, that is her saying no.”
— Fiona Longmuir  
Tagged: Rape Culture, Consent
“Everyone knows and talks about the reaction to danger known as "fight or flight," but most fail to realize that "freeze" is an even more common response - particularly when there are perceived physical OR SOCIAL consequences to either of the first two.”
— SHELF HUMMELS
Tagged: Complexity of Consent, MeToo, #metoo, Fight or Flight, Freeze Response, Response to Trauma, The Shock of Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Awareness
“And perhaps, if your first reaction is to dismiss or belittle this woman’s experience because it is not a tidy story of assault, sit with that a minute, come at it again with compassion and know that assault can still take place when a woman goes home with a man.”
— Kate Leaver
Tagged: Complexity of Consent, Consent Not Coercion, Consent vs. Coercion, Enthusiastic Consent, Rape, Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Awareness, TimesUp, MeToo, #metoo, Quote of the Moment
“Please, let’s use the Aziz Ansari story to discuss how complex consent can be. If you’re tempted to think it was “just a bad date,” please, talk to the women in your life. My heart aches for how many have been through similar.”
— Kate Leaver
Tagged: Complexity of Consent, Consent Not Coercion, Consent vs. Coercion, Enthusiastic Consent, Rape, Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Awareness, TimesUp, MeToo, #metoo