Mona Eltahawy Quotes & Sayings

Why do those men hate us? They hate us because they need us, they fear us, they understand how much control it takes to keep us in line, to keep us good girls with our hymens intact until it's time for them to fuck us into mothers who raise future generations of misogynists to forever fuel their patriarchy. They hate us because we are at once their temptation and their salvation from that patriarchy, which they must sooner or later realize hurts them, too. They hate us because they know that once we rid ourselves of the alliance of State and Street that works in tandem to control us, we
will demand a reckoning. — Mona Eltahawy

Why were women alone responsible for sheltering men from the sexual desires women supposedly elicited in men? Why could men not control themselves? Why, if men were the ones being tempted, were they not the ones being policed? — Mona Eltahawy

The god of virginity is popular in the Arab world. It doesn't matter if you're a person of faith or an atheist, Muslim or Christian - everybody worships the god of virginity. Everything possible is done to keep the hymen - that most fragile foundation upon which the god of virginity sits - intact. At the altar of the god of virginity, we sacrifice not only our girls' bodily integrity and right to pleasure but also their right to justice in the face of sexual violation. Sometimes we even sacrifice their lives: in the name of "honor," some families murder their daughters to keep the god of virginity appeased. When that happens, it leaves one vulnerable to the wonderful temptation of imagining a world where girls and women are more than hymens. — Mona Eltahawy

I do wonder, sometimes, if I had had a daughter, how I would have brought her up. How - when it's taken me so long to unlearn the things I believe are most damaging to the cause of women's liberation and equality - would I have raised my daughter to disobey? — Mona Eltahawy

Candy in a wrapper, a diamond ring in a box - these analogies are commonly used in Egypt and other countries to try to convince women of the value of veiling. They compare women to objects that are precious but devalued by exposure, objects that need to be hidden, protected, and secured. When it comes to what are described as the Islamic restrictions on women's dress, women are never simply women. There — Mona Eltahawy

To the girls of the Middle East: Be immodest, rebel, disobey, and know you deserve to be free — Mona Eltahawy

My own feminist revolution evolved slowly, and traveled the world with me. To this day I have no idea what dissident professor or librarian placed feminist tests on the bookshelves at the university library in Jeddah, but I found them there. They filled me with terror. I understood they were pulling at a thread that would unravel everything. Now that I am older, I can see that feeling terrified is how you recognize what you need. Terror encourages you to jump, even when you don't know if you will ever land. — Mona Eltahawy

Why is violence significantly less traumatizing than our naked bodies? — Mona Eltahawy

Misogyny has not been completely wiped out anywhere. Rather, it resides on a spectrum, and our best hope for eradicating it globally is for each of us to expose and to fight against local versions of it, in the understanding that by doing so we advance the global struggle. — Mona Eltahawy

Words are important - the fight silence, alienation, and violence. Words are flags planted on the planets of our beings; they say this is mine, I have fought for it and despite your attempts to silence me, I am still here. Just as important, words help us find each other and overcome the isolation that threatens to overwhelm and to break us. Words say we are here. — Mona Eltahawy

A male editor I once worked with tried to dissuade me from the personal: "Who care about what happened to you?" The most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters.

It does. — Mona Eltahawy

Being a woman anywhere is dangerous. — Mona Eltahawy

Now that I'm older, I can see that feeling terrified is how you recognize what you need. Terror encourages you to jump, even when you don't know if you'll ever land — Mona Eltahawy

The battles over women's bodies can be won only by a revolution of the mind — Mona Eltahawy

The most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters. — Mona Eltahawy

I believe it's the writer's job to tell society what it pretends it doesn't know. — Mona Eltahawy

We will have a reckoning with our culture and religion, with military rulers and Islamists - two sides of one coin. Such a reckoning is essentially a feminist one. And it is what will eventually free us. Women - our rage, our tenacity, our daring and audacity - will free our countries. — Mona Eltahawy

To be "out of touch" with a society in which women have internalized their subjugation is an admirable thing. — Mona Eltahawy

Equality is a practice, it's not just about words, — Mona Eltahawy

But it is the job of a revolution to shock, to provoke, and to upset, not to behave or to be polite. — Mona Eltahawy

I'm here to confuse you. Confusion is my right and left hook. — Mona Eltahawy

My escape route was to emphasize the
idea of "choice." If a woman had a
right to wear a miniskirt, surely I had the right to choose my headscarf. My choice was a sign of my independence
of mind. Surely, to choose to wear
what I wanted was an
assertion of my feminism. I was a feminist, wasn't I?
But I was to learn that
choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off. And that lesson was an important reminder of how truly "free" choice is. — Mona Eltahawy

Slavish obedience to the clerics, who know how to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of religion, is killing our girls. We must speak-blaspheme, if necessary; be accused of being apostates, if that is what is required. Muslims are taught that Islam put an end to the Arabian practice of burying alive newborn baby girls because they were considered worthless and a burden, but as long as we stay quiet in the face of the abomination of child marriage, we are effectively burying our girls alive today. — Mona Eltahawy