How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #7
My view of that world, and of the nature and meaning of life, I learned from the women, not the men. The men figured as dominant beings, naturally, but they were more like meteors, cutting a trail across our sky, causing havoc possibly, but present only briefly. (101)
Ahmed gives credit where credit is due: the women in her life really made her who she is today. It's a testament to a sort of underground power that the women had in the face of male dominance in the society around them. And yet, the situation is more complicated than this. Ahmed has a strong connection to her father and a tense relationship with her mom. She is influenced by the negativity toward women in her society, and it really takes the entire community of women to influence her so strongly.
Quote #8
And indeed it is obvious that a far greater gulf must separate men's and women's ways of knowing, and the different ways in which men and women understand religion, in the segregated societies of the Middle East than in other societies—and we know that there are differences between women's and men's ways of knowing even in non-segregated societies such as America. (123)
Ahmed considers her idea that there's a "women's Islam" and a "men's Islam" and understands that the Islam she grew up with is definitely part of a female tradition. "Women's ways of knowing" include things like learning from oral tradition (rather than from books) and making decisions based on life experience (not from abstractions). Her perception of the gulf between men and women has a lot to do with living in a gender-segregated society, though she doesn't confine her observations to this community. Both men and women seem willing to ignore each other's ideas, making the gulf even wider.
Quote #9
In some ways, indeed, Girton represented the harem perfected. Not the harem of Western male sexual fantasy or even the harem of Muslim men, fantasy or reality, but the harem as I had lived it, the harem of older women presiding over the young. Even the servers here...were women, and from these grounds, these precincts, the absence of male authority was permanent. (183)
Ahmed redefines the harem based on her idyllic experiences with the family community at Zatoun and Alexandria. It's a supportive system that functions without the authority of men (though probably with male approval). What happens inside this harem—the decisions taken, the topics discussed—stays in the harem. No men need to know.
Girton has the extra glitter, for Ahmed, of professionalism. It's a place where women engage in work normally considered "men's work," but on their own terms. Ahmed knows that the women of Girton wouldn't value the "work" of the women of Zatoun, but she still admires the freedom of Girton and lack of male authority there.