quote by feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi in bright red. “I speak the truth and the truth is savage and dangerous,

Dangerous women are those who challenge the status quo, defy gender norms and stereotypes, often at personal risk, and who refuse to be charming just for an easy life. Now, as in the past, and across cultures, who is deemed a "dangerous" woman is generally decided by those who oppose them.

But I was brutal and violent in a way they tell women not to be.

"He said you were very dangerous."
"No more dangerous than anyone else who dares to speak the truth."

A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.

I am a woman searching for her savagery
even if it’s doomed

I was learning that, even for a woman with power, the path was dotted with land mines—she's so ambitious. she's so aggressive. she's ruthless. "Funny thing," I used to say, "a man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless . . . all a woman has to do is put you on hold."

“Truth is a deadly weapon,” Lady said.
“Which is why priests and princes dread it,” I said.

Eh! sire, that is the fate of truth; she is a stern companion; she bristles all over with steel; she wounds those whom she attacks, and sometimes him who speaks her.

A clever woman is more lethal than a freshly crafted magic wand, and that is why she is fear.

"One of the most dangerous classes in the world," said he, "is the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed."

The more you analyze what makes these behaviors transgressive, the easier it is to see what they’re threatening: what it means to be a woman, of course, but also entrenched understandings of women’s passive role in society. While the book centers around highly visible women, it also reveals the expectations surrounding every woman’s behavior — and why talking too loudly, acting too promiscuously, or exposing too much skin is so incredibly threatening to the status quo.

There is truth in what you say. Truth is a dangerous muse. One dies for the truth.

She might be violent.