Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution

by Mona Eltahawy

Author(s): Mona Eltahawy ISBN: 9781780228877 Binding: Paperback Published: 2016-05-10 One of the most controversial, talked-about books of 2015, in a fresh new package, published to coincide with International Women's Day. HEADSCARVES AND HYMENS explodes the myth that we should stand back and watch while women are disempowered and abused in the name of religion. In this laceratingly honest account, Eltahawy takes aim both at attitudes in the Middle East and at the western liberals who mistake misogyny for cultural difference. Her argument is clear: unless political revolution in the Arab world is accompanied by social and sexual revolution, no progress will be made.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Politics, Religion, Middle East, Islam, Womens

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2015

About the author

Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning writer on Arab and Muslim issues and global feminism.

She is the author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) and The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (2019), founder of the newsletter Feminist Giant, and a regular contributor to The Guardian.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 2 out of 5]

Update I've finished the book. I have a lot to say. I'm thinking on how to do it. I have a lot of problems with the author and find her wilfully stupid and also ignoring ways of helping end FGM because they don't suit her politcally. When I think on how to say it, I will write a review.

There is a small herd of elephants in the room.They are hiding behind the sofa that everyone is sitting on facing the author who is in full swing with her justified and passionate rant. She can see them but she knows that so long as her audience isn't distracted and starts looking around, she can safely ignore these huge beasts (and escape awkward questions).

These three elephants are Israel, African Jews and Israeli Arabs with especial reference towards the Bedouin. The fourth elephant no one has the courage to mention because it would be political incorrect and the greatest sin in the Western world is to give offence to any group because of race, religion or gender. Even when that is what we are (not) talking about. Islam.

More when I finish the book. Although it is heavy going because I do not like being lectured at and not allowed to question because if I do the author will shriek unpleasant names at me, Islamophobe being the first and then several more. Then I will be told not to interfere with her culture and then I say but I am left wing and do not believe in autocracies of any kind and I will be told then I have to fight for women's rights and then I will sit down and shut up because she got me both ways.

This is not a good book, but it is a good subject and a good half of a debate.

And just as it happens I have been involved in the fight against FGM and with an Egyptian of influence.

_________________

I was involved in group therapy at one time. It became obvious to me that within a few meetings everyone in the group was aware of what everyone else's problems were but none of them could call it for themselves. We have ears that listen but we do not hear. That's what therapy is all about, trying to get the individual to see how they behave and why they behave that way and what is at the very root of it and to address that. It's a profitable business for therapists, group or otherwise, as everyone only wants to stick to their dearly-held beliefs about themselves.

___________

I don't know how much more this strident complaint about the appalling treatment of women I can take when the author absolutely refuses to address the root of the problem. And everyone else is too damn PC to call it is as it is.

And the Middle East seems to be strangely short of one country as she tells it.

She does not like how the Left wing of the West want freedom and self-determinism for countries of the Middle East and Africa but ignore the plight of women putting it down to something cultural each ccountry must decide for itself. But she herself is happy to ignore one whole country and how all the problems she has built a whole career lecturing, publicising and protesting about, are dealt with there.

Hi

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was recently at a friend's going away party here in Paris and got into an interesting conversation with a woman from Algeria who mentioned this book to me. She said that should had her hand over her mouth the entire time - about how the author was groped during her hadj (or hajj) while she circled the Kaaba and how she was gang-raped in Cairo during manifestations in 2011 following the Arab spring revolution there. Her analysis of misogyny in the Middle East is precise and factual citing issues in her native Egypt but also Saudi Arabia (where she lived as a child and teenager), Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and elsewhere. It is filled with both anecdotes and verifiable incidents of violence against women that is sanctioned by radical elements and yet unsupported by the text of the Quran. She covers the issues of the niqab, female genital mutilation (FGB), the overall repression in Saudi Arabia, and it is a devastating account. It was interesting to note that although we tend to think of FGM as a practice limited to Africa and Arabia, that it was practiced in the US until the 1960s and in England as well. Along with Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists, it is a call to action that resonates particularly in the current environment under Drumpf of gender-based attacks against women and more specifically violence against Hillary Clinton (re: the re-Tweet he made on 17/09/17 of a golf ball striking HRC in the back). I felt the writing was a bit dumbed-down but the message was real and urgent.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Later add......
I think my review of this book has probably been rather biased in some respects. Two comments were particularly good in restoring some balance to my perspective. See below, comments 22 and 24.

-----------------------------------

I found this one of the most depressing books that I have ever read about female oppression. It describes the state of Muslim women in North Africa and the Middle East. There are small signs of rebellion and hope, like the fact there are currently more Saudi women at university than men. But the overall weight of oppression described seems like a huge, unmoveable, leaden stodge of prejudice, kept in place by centuries of religious and cultural practices.

It left me with a great sense of sorrow for Muslim women in these countries, and an overwhelming sense of relief that I had been lucky enough to be born in a country where - for the most part - women are treated as equals.

The two main things that struck me were the ubiquity of female genital mutilation, and the degree to which women are sexually harassed as they go about their business. Apparently the worst country for this is Yemen - where women cover themselves from head to toe. This seemingly offers little protection. Apparently levels of harassment have soared all over the Arab world. Only a couple of days ago in The Times there was a note saying that 3,982 harassment cases made it to Saudi courts in 2013/14. And this is in a society where nearly all blame for sexual misconduct is placed upon women, on the grounds that they were being too provocative, or were in the wrong place at the wrong time...... so think of all the thousands of women shamed into not coming forward. The author says she was repeatedly groped in Saudi Arabia, even when going to Mecca during Hajj (pilgrimage.) Apparently in Yemen the main form of harassment is pinching. I tried to visualise what it would be like to have a strange man pinching me, but I couldn't. To me it speaks of a contempt that is almost inconceivable.

Another interesting issue for me was the big quandary for the author about whether or not she should wear a hajib. There are various reasons she gives as to why women do or don't wear it, but either way, it often seems a big deal. Here are some of the reasons why people wear it (or don't wear it.)
* Piety - the belief that the Qur'an mandates this expression of modesty
* The wish to be visibly identifiable as 'Muslim'.
* A way of avoiding expensive fashion trends or a visit to the hair salon.
* A way to get more freedom to move around in public spaces (Women who don't wear veils tend to be harassed more.)
*Some women fight their families for the right to wear the veil.
*Other women are forced to wear the veil by their families.
*Sometimes wearing a veil is a way to rebel against a political regime or the West.
The author says:
I chose to wear the hijab at the age of sixteen, and chose to stop wearing it when I was twenty-five. It is no exaggeration to say that the hijab has consumed a large portion of my intellectual and emotional energy since I first put on a headscarf."
The author now supports the idea of a ban on the hijab.

I think this book is a must read. Before I read it I had a fairly strong opinion that women were oppressed in a lot of fundamentalist Muslim countries - but this book really drives it home, with facts, figures and examples, and it makes the lives of these women very real. It's so easy to think of women swathed in black and perhaps wearing burqas as 'them', but they are not, they are 'us'.

The author has had a chequered upbringing, living and studying in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UK. She is now a journalist/activist living in America, promoting female emancipation in North Africa and the Middle East. I am still thinking about something she said about Western Liberals...

"When Westerners remain silent out of 'respect' for foreign cultures, they show support only for the most conservative elements of those cultures. Cultural relativism is as much my enemy as the oppression I fight within my culture and faith"

She also makes the point that Islamophobes and Xenophobic right wingers are all too happy to hear about how badly Muslim men treat their women, and this makes her campaigning difficult.

I will end with my usual splurge notes - lots of them taken directly from the book

Egypt

The law gives men permission to beat their wives, as long as it is "with good intentions". This means beatings that are not "severe" or "directed at the face".

In a 2008 survey by The Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights over 80% of women said they'd experienced sexual harassment. More than 60% of men admitted to harassing women. Most (of the) women agreed that women should keep harassment to themselves, to avoid ruining their reputations.

A 2013 UN survey reported that 99.3% of Egyptian women experience street sexual harassment.

The Arab Spring in 2011.....whilst it overthrew a tyrant (Hosni Mubarak), it did not overthrow misogyny against women. After that neither President Mohamed Morsi who was elected, nor the military who replaced him, have supported women's rights.

After Egypt was liberated, the author was sexually assaulted by security forces in November 2011, and beaten so severely that her left arm and right hand were broken. She was also detained for twelve hours. At least twelve other women were sexually assaulted during the protest. None of them has spoken publicly about their ordeal.

A 2013 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll surveying 22 Arab states put Egypt as the single worst country for women's rights.
- gender violence
- reproductive rights.
- treatment of women in the family
- female inclusion in politics and the economy.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of women's rights groups, finally, in 2014 the state acknowledged the problem and criminalized the physical and verbal harassment of women. In July, five men were jailed for life for attacking and harassing women during celebrations of el-Sisi's inauguration in June.


Saudi Arabia

Things women cannot do:
Drive

Things that women cannot do without permission from a husband or male relative:
Travel
Open a bank account
Apply for a job
Get medical treatment.

Women got the right to vote and stand for election in 2015. The Grand Mufti believes that women's involvement in politics "will open the door to evil."

The religious clerics are also strongly against women driving. (In 2013 Saudi cleric Saleh Lohaidan argued that it would damage women's overies.)

According to a survey conducted by the King Abdul Aziz Centre for National Dialogue, 86.5% of Saudi men blame "women's excessive makeup" for the rising cases involving molestation.

Countless Saudi malls are for families only, barring single men from entry.

The Saudi royal family gets its legitimacy from religious zealots, and the royal family gives them especially big handouts.

The reasons that SA has so much power:
*Oil
*It has Islam's two most holiest places, Mecca and Medina.
*It controls the flow of petro dollars that funds the manufacturers of weapons, in the countries of its Western allies.

Tunisia

The best Arab country in attitudes towards women. The first constitution to recognise men and women as equal.
Has women in parliament, but they face a tough time.




Yemen

49% of women are illiterate
59% don't participate in the labour force
There are no women in Yemen's parliament.
Child marriage here is quite common. There have been more demonstrations here to support it than to oppose it.

General

The World Economics Forum's "Global Gender Gap Report cited Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa at the bottom of the list. Not one of them is in the top 100 positions. Yemen is the lowest ranking country in the world.

Women in Arab countries cannot marry or divorce without a male guardian's blessing.

Child marriages are found in the Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

[Maede · Rating 4 out of 5]

خواندن این کتاب برام خیلی سخت بود و حالا نوشتن ازش خیلی سخت‌تر. روسری‌ها و پرده‌های بکارت داستان زنان خاورمیانه‌ست. مونا الطحاوی نویسنده‌ی کتاب در مصر متولد شده، اما سال‌هایی هم در عربستان سعودی زندگی کرده و بعد به اروپا و آمریکا رفته. اگر در ایران به دنیا آمده باشید و زن باشید، تقریباً هیچکدام از داستان‌های کتاب آنقدر شوکه کننده نیستند و این درد بزرگیه. چون نویسنده از قوانین ضد زن، اجبار برای حجاب، اهمیت باکرگی، ختنه‌ی زنان،‌ تعرض و تجاوز به بدن زن و دردهای دیگر زنان در کشورهای عرب خاورمیانه و شمال آفریقا نوشته. ایران حتی بخشی از حیطه‌ی صحبت نویسنده نیست و این دردها تا این حد مشترک هستند

با وجود این شباهت، نمی‌تونم بگم که از وضعیت فرهنگی کشورهای عربی و تفکرات ضد زن مردانشون باز هم جا نخوردم. کلمه‌ی مناسب برای توصیف این مسائل می‌تونه «قباحت» باشه و چیزی که تا این حد قبیحه هیچوقت عادی نمیشه. هرچقدر که ببینی، بشنوی و حتی زندگیش کنی

در مجموع کتاب بسیار خوبی برای نگاه به جامعه‌ی عرب و مسلمان از منظر مشکلات زنان هست و برای ما که در ایران اینطور با این مشکل درگیریم، دیدن این الگوهای تکراری در این جغرافیا و پیروان این دین روشن‌کننده‌ست. البته که کتاب در سال ۲۰۱۵ نوشته شده و یک نکته‌ی جالب هم اینه که میشه پس از ده سال به پیشرفت، پسرفت و در جا زدن این کشورها هم فکر کرد و گاهی، فقط گاهی، کمی برای آینده امیدوار شد

کتاب و صوتیش رو می‌تونید از اینجا دانلود کنید
Maede's Books

۱۴۰۳/۱۱/۳

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across this book at the Librairie Antoine in Beirut, Lebanon, where I was happy to find a shelf full of feminist literature, mostly by Middle Eastern authors and some Western feminist literature as well. Up until to this point, I hadn’t really been aware of Arab or Middle Eastern feminists, and it was high time to change this – Mona Eltahawy’s book was the right one to start with. Written in 2015, it focuses amongst other things on recent events in the Middle East, especially the Arab Spring in Egypt and its consequences on the liberation of women. As far as I know, there is no translation into Arabic. Are Arab editors afraid of publishing it?

This is an important book which should be read by a large readership –– women and men, in the Middle East and in the West as well. I think Western societies should pay more attention to the women and men in the Middle East who are, even though still fond of their rich cultural heritage, courageous enough to criticise aspects of their culture (and religion) which need reform.

I would like to share an important paragraph with you which addresses Europeans and Americans, and might give you an idea why I think this book deserves five stars:

“When I write or give lectures about gender inequality in the Middle East and North Africa, I understand I am walking into a minefield. On one side stands a bigoted and racist Western right wing that is all too eager to hear critiques of the region and of Islam that it can use against us. I would like to remind these conservatives that no country is free of misogyny, and that their efforts to reverse hard-earned women’s reproductive rights makes them brothers-in-hatred to our Islamists.
On the other side stand those Western liberals who rightly condemn imperialism and yet are blind to the cultural imperialism they are performing when they silence critiques of misogyny. They behave as if they want to save my culture and faith from me, and forget that they are immune to the violations about which I speak. Blind to the privilege and the paternalism that drive them, they give themselves the right to determine what is “authentic” to my culture and faith. If the right wing is driven by a covert racism, the left sometimes suffers from an implicit racism through which it usurps my right to determine what I can and cannot say." (p.28)

[Abeer Abdullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard and bizarre to see your ugly reality reflected before you so accurately. Even more incredible is to have a book speak to you so personally, one that sounds exactly like your own internal monologue in the face of what feel like tyrannical life forces, impossible to counter. This book gives me the sort of hope I'm really afraid of having. But Mona Eltahawy has documented our lives with an incredible mix of the public and factual and the personal and intimate. I'm extremely grateful to her.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit I am conflicted about the whole complete veil, the niqab. It just seems segregating in a way that simply covering your hair doesn’t do. Furthermore, the men who seem to endorse it, by and large, are men that I never want to meet. Yet, I am American enough (Eltahaway would undoubtedly say I am Western liberal enough) that if it is a choice freely made than who I am to say otherwise.

And the key to that sentence is freely. And it is too Eltahaway’s credit as a writer that she has gotten me to rethink me view on the public veil bans in some European countries. Eltahaway’s point is that how can be choice when women aren’t involved in the debates about wearing it, where the voice of the men in the community overrides and shock over the women. Mansplaining in the worse case.

Undoubtedly her argument in this regard does have some weak points, but it is a strong point and one worth thinking about it.
If you have listen to Eltahaway’s reporting on the BBC or her commentary on some American cable channels much of this book retreads those same points, expanding on them in some cases and offering more detailed reasoning. Her focus here is mainly on Egypt, understandably so, and she keeps the focus mainly in the Middle East. For the Western feminist, there are plenty of more women to add to your reading list, making reading this book perhaps an expensive proposition.

On one hand, at some points in the book, I wish there had been more footnoting. Despite, this, however, there is passion in the book, and Eltahaway does make you think about the role that the West plays. Why do we stand up for the women of Afghanistan but not the women of Saudi Arabia? Is it simply the question of oil? How can the West help facilitate change? The questions that she raises do not have easy answers.

[Deema · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up in the Middle East, I’m no stranger to the way men sexualize girls and women. I have been subjected to that myself, and had to spend years actively rejecting these misogynistic inclinations that I’d subconsciously internalized over the years.

Despite my experience with this topic, and despite opening this book with a good idea of what to expect, Headscarves and Hymens made me furious. It shed light on just how little respect men have for women in the Arab world, and just how little regard men give the women in their lives. This book lays out all the evidence to prove one undeniable fact: women in our culture are seen as nothing but sex objects. We are our holes, ladies. This position is reinforced legally, culturally, and religiously.

If I could turn the details of this book into the timeline of a girl’s life, it would look something like this: A girl is born, and, from a very young age, is told by her elders that they cannot wait to see her as a bride. The only aspiration she grows up with is being desirable and chaste enough for a man to marry her. She is then hidden away by her family, either by literally not being allowed to leave her home without male permission, or by wearing a niqab and abaya so as not to accidentally entice the men around her. If this doesn’t work, and she is raped by one of these men, her “honor” is stolen from her, and she brings shame upon her family. The rapist, meanwhile, can make amends and escape a jail sentence by marrying her. When she is “of age”, which, in many cases, can be as young as nine years old, she is taken to a doctor or a professional cutter where her genitalia – the clitoris and labia minora/majora – is removed, with what’s remaining being crudely sewn back together. This is so that she does not engage in any premarital sex or search for sexual fulfillment before getting married, including pleasuring herself. Once married, her ownership transfers from her father to her husband, who has the right to beat her, force sex on her, and deny her the right to work. The law will allow for this, because the preservation of “family” is more important than the preservation of her wellbeing. If she wants a divorce, she has to jump through hoops, while her husband does not. If a relative dies, she receives half the inheritance of a man. If her husband dies, she needs the permission of her son (or the next male in the family) to remarry.

This is obviously an extreme example, created by using every cultural practice and legal entitlement described in the book, but for even one of those things to happen to a girl in her lifetime is appalling.

These laws are archaic. These practices are horrifying. These cultural norms have been in place for centuries. So why are we not revolting?

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had read this 10 years ago, I would have been tempted to make a few feeble arguments defending the right to wear hijab, but now I am all in with Mona. She's right. It's all based in misogyny and oppression and there are softer edges of and harder edges, but it is killing women and destroying society. She's right that the left and the right are both condescending and paternalistic toward the middle east and often hand the men the power they have extracted by oppression and shame. Ending the oppression of women (especially in the middle east, but everywhere) has to be a priority for any worldwide movement. Times up for these men. This book made me so angry.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be Warned this is one hard-hitting book! As a cautioning, some parts of this book are emotionally difficult – on occasion I literally had to put the book down and take a deep breath.

We all know that women have it tough the world over in all forms of sexual harassment. Mona Eltahawy acknowledges this. But in the Middle East it is far worse. She was brought up in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. She gradually started to realize, as she entered adolescence, the level of abuse she and other women underwent. This book is about the treatment of women in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen... (I wish this book would have had an index).

In the following discussion I use the word women, but girls (as in below 18) are also implied.

Her overall diagnostic is that men hate women – at all levels - the governments, the opposition parties, and the men on the street. They all want to limit and control women’s lives. They don’t want them to go out independently by themselves. Saudi Arabia does not allow a woman out alone unaccompanied. She must be with a male family member. They do not allow women to drive a car. And these are the nice parts of the book.

There is an interesting discussion of the hijab that covers the hair. The author wore one for several years – and after much soul-searching discarded it. She despises the niqab which covers the entire body apart from the eyes.

The streets in the Arab world belong to men. Harassment, groping or worse is a constant. There is a “purity culture” that wants women to remain at home and not be exposed to temptation. The state assaults women with virginity tests. Women can be raped on the street and/or raped by the police (i.e. reporting rape to the authorities can just lead to more physical harassment). This happened during Egypt’s revolution.

In many countries, a rapist can be exonerated if he marries the girl in question. Among other issues with this, the rapist may be several years older. Some countries have laws that will punish consensual sex between unmarried adults. A woman alone is not permitted to stay in a hotel. Couples have to present a marriage certificate to stay at a hotel. The state vilifies women, the street is physically intimidating to them – and the home has total control.

Page 95 from a young Egyptian woman
“Nothing is my decision. And I have no power over anything: My parents decide what I study at university and whom I’ll marry...And then I saw those women on television talking about how they were assaulted and I understood that I don’t even have control over my own body – the state does.”

A woman has no autonomy over her body.

There are also agonizing discussions on female genital mutilation - a direct bodily attack denying women their sexuality. Virginity and honor are sacrosanct.

Page 114
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.

And then there is domestic abuse.

Page 144
Egypt’s penal code allows a man to beat his wife with “good intention”.

Shelters for women and children are unknown, except for a few in Lebanon. Divorce is controlled by Sharia.

Page 169
In Yemen and Saudi Arabia there is no minimum age for marriage.

There are a few hopeful signs. Some women are speaking openly about the abuse they have suffered. Some affluent women in Saudi Arabia are breaking the law and driving cars. There is growing indignation with FGM. But in all cases these protests are opposed by the ever-powerful religious forces dominated by men.

Until the shackles of male domination and of religious indoctrination are broken – the road of women to equality will be long and difficult. The governments in power and the Islamist religious groups who hold sway over the masses of people, do nothing to empower women.

[Zsa Zsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What would happen if a woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”
It befits a feminist to start her year with a book by a feminist.
This was too close to home, even though she mentioned Iran’s name barely three times, this all applied to us and it made me hurt but also made me realize I’m not alone, we’re not alone and together we will bring change.

[Farhat Amin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Podcast review

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...

Why did I want to read this book? The title is hardly Islamic. What could I possibly learn from a book whose title has such promiscuous connotations?

The reason why I read this book was for the purpose of research for a new book that I am writing with fellow Muslim writers on the topic of the Islamic alternative to feminism.

As well as editing the book I am writing a chapter for the book and the topic is the sexualization of women. We are all aware that liberal societies are becoming hypersexualized and I genuinely believe many women, Muslim and non-muslim, are not happy about how progressively promiscuous our societies are becoming. So as part of my research, I wanted to understand why that has occurred.

So I have been reading a number of books and articles about the Sexual Revolution that took place during the 1960s and its subsequent effects. The other books I’ve read include A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit and Sex Object by Jessica Valenti. Both hold opposing views about the benefits of the Sexual Revolution for women living in America. We read A Return to Modesty as part of the Thinking Muslim Bookclub on Goodreads.


What was the Sexual Revolution?
“Also known as a time of sexual liberation, it was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality calling for sexual equality for women in their interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and subsequently, the wider world, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Sexual liberation included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships (primarily marriage). The normalization of contraception and the pill, public nudity, pornography, premarital sex, homosexuality, and the legalization of abortion.

At the same time as the sexual revolution was taking place,the Second-wave of feminism began in the United States in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world.
Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality (e.g., voting rights and property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to include a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights.

We can observe that the combined consequence of both these movements was that women were now positively encouraged to be sexually free and equally promiscuous as men.

This Liberal view of sex and relationships has been exported globally via popular culture so that would be through music, movies, novels, and social media, of course, Muslim countries have not been immune to this proselytization

However, we know that this lifestyle goes against Islamic values, normalizes zina, encourages people to question the sanctity of marriage, and promotes shamelessness which in the Quran is called both Fasha and al fahisha.

And do not approach unlawful sexual intercourse. Indeed, it is ever an immorality and is evil as a way. Al Isra 17:32

Al Fahsha: This refers to shamelessness in the general sense, The idea of been inappropriate or doing ugly things. Anything that is ugly , detestable behavior is considered fasha. Socially unacceptable speech, socially unacceptable clothing, socially unacceptable actions, Vulgarity, lewdness etc fall under Fasha. Inappropriateness...

ii. Al fahisha: This refers to a particular act of inappropriateness.

So Fahsha is the general inappropriateness
Al fahisha is a particular act of inappropriateness. Plural for both: Al Fawahish

So bearing all of this in mind I was curious to find out why the author is advocating quite vociferously for the need for sexual revolution in Muslim countries.

Since I became interested in the topic of whether Islam is compatible with feminism, I have genuinely made an effort to understand feminist ideas by reading books by non-muslim and Muslim feminists. I don’t want to have a shallow understanding.

As I have said in previous podcasts, the women’s liberation movement was a movement that was initiated by non-muslim, secular, liberal women who believed women should have Equal rights as men. These rights were essentially thought conceived and devised by John Locke, a 17th-century philosopher, he was the founding father of Liberalism. He has a prophet-like status amongst liberals. In his secular (teachings) he states that man is born with natural rights, these rights cannot be taken away. They are the right to life, liberty, and property. These rights reflect that all human beings are born equal, in the sense that each individual is of equal moral worth.

As each century has passed, these rights have evolved and changed and so has the feminst movement. Additional rights have been added to this list of “inalienable rights” now known as human rights.

I wanted to explain this so you can understand where the author is coming from.

Mona Eltahawy is a liberal, she believes in human rights. She described herself as "a secular, radical feminist Muslim" Her lens for looking at the world and finding solutions is equality and freedom, not Islam.

Here is a common mistake that I have been guilty of making, and maybe you have too.

There are so few books written by Muslim women about Muslim women's issues.

So when we see one we do not evaluate or critique the ideas they are conveying as we would be, if a non-muslim had written it.

As Muslims, it’s our obligation to seek knowledge and unearth the truth.

So, this is how I approached this book, and now all books written by Muslim women and I would like to invite you to do the same.

I decided to evaluate her opinions without positive or negative bias, just because she is a Muslim woman it shouldn’t mean we automatically assume she has our best interest at heart.

Rather I evaluated her views objectively and unemotionally

Secondly, it’s essential to assess whether a writer's views are in line with the majority, scholarly, mainstream Islamic opinions.

Mona Eltahawy’s book is written to challenge. She does not mince her words. Like all Muslim feminists, she surmises Arabs hate women. Her remedy leaves little room for doubt unless women in the Middle East dispense with religion and their cultures and embrace liberal equality, they will remain mere chattel. Her language is often unpleasant and crude, she declares, “I believe in the power of profanity, profanity – especially delivered by women – is a powerful way to transgress the red lines of politeness and niceness that the patriarchy”. in her mind that’s how she is going to get heard. Women’s rights can only be secured after women go through a sexual revolution, dispense with anachronistic norms, and embrace liberal ‘modernity’.

Before critiquing her approach, I would like to begin this review with overlaps between my thinking and hers. Regardless of the quality of evidence, she cites and the accurateness of her experiences I agree with her that the Muslim world is a mess. Women are treated horrifically in many countries and the injustice many women have to face coupled with the failure of Arab and Muslim governments to protect her rights should make us all feel a sense of sadness. The problem is two-fold, firstly that the treatment of women falls short of any sense of a just society and secondly, the rule of law is non-existent. In other words, very few perpetrators of harm against women seem to face punishment.

I first came across her work when I read the chapter she penned, “Too Loud, Swears Too Much and Goes Too Far” in the equally troubling book, “It's Not About the Burqa” where she explains her thinking, she calls for “social and sexual revolutions alongside the political revolutions of the Arab Spring in order to liberate women from all forms of oppression.” In her mind, this oppression is rooted in Islam. Yet the perplexing thing is her views are embraced by many young Muslim women and of course championed by westerners eager to find so-called independent voices in the Muslim world, even if she is a New Yorker.

El-Tahawi is a secular, radical feminist. Achieving social, political, and sexual equality for women is her mission. If she finds an Islamic rule that disagrees with these principles, then this rule has to be rejected. This is because her connection with Allah is not one of submitting to his omnipotence but to only incorporate aspects of the religion which accord with social liberalism, she says

“I insist on the right to critique both my culture and my faith in ways that I would reject from an outsider.

She continues, “I am not naïve enough to think that “fornication” will disappear as a concept or as a sin from either the Muslim or Christian way of life in our region. I am instead calling for a pragmatic approach to sexuality that would allow consenting adults who choose to have sex with other consenting adults the freedom to do so, with the knowledge and birth control they require to do so safely. That freedom to choose will not infringe on the freedom to choose to wait until marriage if that is what you want. The more freedom we have, the more choices available to people. The fewer freedoms we have, the faster hypocrisy will eat away at the heart of our society.”
For El-Tahawi, she rails against conservative interpretations of Islam. And maybe here she has a point, as a result of two centuries of liberalization, Muslim scholars have adopted a conservatism to respond to liberal degradation, its a defensive mechanism to attempt to safeguard the family in the face of a cultural onslaught. However one must not be under any illusion, if she was offered a selection of more ‘softer’ Islamic opinions, she would no doubt find any law that didn’t accord with a western conception of rights to be unacceptable. A husband seeing it as his responsibility to pay the bills and or even separate entrances to a mosque would be seen as the patriarchy.
She says, “In Tunisia polygamy was banned, and I agree with this. A man should not be able to marry four women unless a woman can marry four men. I am not monogamous; I don’t believe in monogamy and I don’t have just one partner, but Islam allows men to be polygamous and not me. It’s unfair. Either both can have multiple partners or neither can.”
She will not accept any Islam that isn't chastened by secular liberalism. And this is the most worrying problem with El-Tahawi. She sounds like a radical, but that’s only in tone. Her prescriptions are as old as the imperialism she borrows them from. Like Lord Cromer before her - the 19th Century Englishman saw the liberation of women to be the key to unlocking the Muslim world. In practice, imperialism had a more sinister aim, to destroy the Muslim family as a means to destroy Muslim society.

“Name me an Arab country, and I’ll recite a litany of abuses against women occurring in that country, abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend.”

Her solution is that Islam must be reformed and Muslims should take a secular approach to their religion just as Christians and Jews have. Allah and His Messenger come after Locke and Voltaire - El Tahawi would have approved of the latter's play labeling the Prophet of Islam a “fanatic and imposter” in the name of free speech.

Her criticism of Islam comes in the form of straw men. She glosses over two centuries of colonialism in the Muslim world, the cause behind despotism and failed societies in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and instead shift the blame on Islam. A true academic would have analyzed the status of Muslim women throughout Islamic history, measured that with the decline from the 19th century onwards, and found the liberalsiation process that undermined the fabric of Muslim life.


The Saudi family has used religion to maintain the monarchy and justify their autocratic rule. This relationship between religion and monarchy was a result of a 18th-century pact between Muhammad bin Saud and the religious authority in order to fight the Ottoman Empire. This pact served and was instigated by the British, as it sought to undermine Ottoman strength.

El-Tahawi biggest criticisms are made at Egypt,

“When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband “with good intentions,” no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. ”

Egypt is not by any stretch a state obedient to Islamic law. Egypt was ruled by foreign imperial powers: The British Empire. Modern Egypt dates back to 1922 when it gained nominal independence from the British Empire as a monarchy. However, the British military occupation of Egypt continued, and many Egyptians believed that the monarchy was an instrument of British colonialism. The current prime minister is Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his government is dedicated to maintaining Egypt as a secular state. This secular state was consolidated by the British to serve their interests. The absence of rights isn’t due to Islam is because of Islam’s absence in the state and society.

Most secular autocrats in the Muslim world have tried to force through a process liberalization from above. Mohammed bin Salman is doing that right now in Saudi, Hosni Mubarak did this in Egypt. This forced liberalization began under colonial powers. So what we have now in the Muslim world are postcolonial constructs that serve Western interests.

Colonialism and its aftermath are the reason why Muslim societies are so dysfunctional and are failing both men and women.

Liberal elites under autocrats have safely lived a life of luxury. They raid the country of its wealth and flout their social cultures in public, looking down with disdain at the poor and religious. Then they write books in New York calling for an Islamic reformation. Their pretenses fall on deaf ears in the Muslim world, but in the west, young Muslims that live on a diet of social media outrage find a cause in El-Tahawi.

El-tahawi denies that she wants “the West to rescue us. Only we can rescue ourselves.” but after reading this book, it's clear her aim is for Muslim women like me and you replace our Islamic identity and rescue ourselves by adopting her secular liberalism. Her intentions are illustrated by her comments about wearing the hijab and the niqab.
“I support the bans on the face veil that have been imposed in France, Belgium, and some parts of Barcelona, Spain.”

Really what is the difference between what she is saying and the language we have become accustomed to in newspapers and talk shows? Let’s not be under any illusion, the Islamic world is in turmoil, but this is not because of Islam its because if its absence. To help Muslim women we first have to assert Islamic rights in Muslim societies.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank God my daughter was born in Canada. And, more and more, I realize how much I've won the lottery of life by being born white, male, and Western.

There's always a dilemma when rating important books. Yes, this should be read and absorbed and debated and turned into action. The personal stories and details are heart-rending. And the call to avoid an Orientalist approach to problem solving in the Middle East is refreshing. But the writing is ordinary.

So read and recommend Mona Eltahawy's report from a corner of the world that is particularly dismal for women. Figure out how best to assist. And don't fret over the writing - it's the message that matters.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters.”

Mona Eltahawy tackles women's rights in the Middle East, zeroing in on issues such as FGM, marital rape, citizenship, autonomy, ability to work, education, pleasure in sex, enforced clothing code, and more. She is direct, she does not mince words, and it should be obvious that this includes frequent mention of rape, assault, war-based violence, imprisonment, kidnapping, it is not an easy topic.

I appreciate the author's sometimes journalistic take and sometimes personal take, for instance sharing her changing perspective on the veil/headscarve/burqa. It reminded me of G. Willow Wilson's intellectual journey in The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam. Is the choice to wear the veil feminism? Is it really a choice? They did not necessarily reach the same conclusion but both are thoughtful in their consideration of the topic.

The author also is plain about her struggle in discussing these issues with Americans and other people living outside the Middle East, for fear of our tendency to see misogyny and poor treatment of women as being "over there" and a facet specifically of Islam. She shows how it is and how it isn't, and warns that we are all responsible for fighting the creep of control.

“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.”

The way she connects the control of women's bodies to other events should make all of us pay attention. “The battles over women's bodies can be won only by a revolution of the mind.”

I will also recommend her more recent book, which does a great job at showing the universality of women's rights and is a brilliant followup to this one - The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls.

[Jenn Fields · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title clued me in -- I knew I'd be angry as I read this one. And I was. And the rage grew the more I read. That's why I recommend it. We should all be so enraged.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mona Eltahawy is advocating, literally, a sexual revolution in the Middle East. She touches on issues such as voting, employment and access to education, but the main theme is that the social, legal and religious control over women’s bodies and their sexuality needs to change.

She provides a survey of the status of laws in the region that permit the indefensibly unjust treatment of women and the flimsy Quranic authority on which they are based. There have been some small successes at the political level such as the curbs on female genital mutilation, the push to repeal laws that allow rapists to get off if they marry their victim and election of female parliament members in Kuwait. Signs that things are changing for individuals include lesbian plays in Lebanon, two female Olympic participants from Saudi Arabia and a “kiss-in” in Morocco.

There are comparisons to fundamentalists in other religions, particularly in the US. While she doesn’t mention it, witch trials come to mind for their random terror.

Eltahawy is at her best when she speaks of her own struggles and how it took 8 years to stop veiling, how she sought out her first sexual experience and how she understands her writing puts her family in an uncomfortable position.

She ends with a description of a support group which is fitting for the sub-narrative which is that change begins with women sharing their stories.

[Aloke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first essay "Why they hate us" is excellent, pulling you in with an arresting reference to a story from the Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat about "a woman so unmoved during sex with her husband [...] she notices a spiderweb she must sweep off the ceiling." Soon afterwards the husband is dead and we're off to the races.

Some of the essays are tough to get through, heartbreaking stories sometimes get lost in a litany of statistics and recitations of laws. Eltahawy connects best when she is describing events from her own life such as her decision to wear and eventually to abandon the veil, suffering sexual harassment as a teenager in Saudi Arabia, and more recently having her arms broken and being detained by security forces in Egypt during protests in 2011. She emphasizes the power of women sharing their stories: "words help us find each other and overcome the isolation that threatens to overwhelm and break us," and her stories are the best part of the book.

It also reminded me of a recent New Yorker article about Chinese lingerie merchants in conservative Upper Egypt. The writer, Peter Hessler, talks to the owner of a cellphone factory:

"He had wanted to hire women, but he quickly discovered that he was limited to those who are unmarried. Turnover was high: most workers quit whenever they got engaged or married. Even worse, Xu discovered that young Egyptian women can’t live in dormitories, because it’s considered inappropriate to be away from their parents at night. Female employees have to be bused in and out of Suez, which adds more than three hours to the workday."

Forget oil, the true potential of the Middle East is in unlocking the productivity of half their population! (We also shouldn't get too smug in the west about this either.)

[Hala · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really hard book to read, and it is as hard to review too. I don't know how I was able to finish it in one sitting. I'll have to process what I just read before writing a full lengthy review.

[Leftbanker · Rating 5 out of 5]

One the one hand, I'd like to say that the author of this book has incredible courage to speak out for women’s issues in a part of the world where dissent of any kind is often met with violence or the threat of violence, but for a woman to speak out on women’s issues is even more dangerous. On the other hand I don't know why she would continue to call herself a Muslim.

One argument that I haven’t heard in defense of anti-hijab and anti-niqab laws in Western Europe is that to allow this form of dress we are acquiescing to a misogynist culture that exists outside of our own. We have literally fought in the streets at times to free our societies from the power of superstitions foisted upon us by religion. For the first time in history people can publicly state that they are atheist. Clerics cannot force their will on the people because we have declared a separation of church and state. This separation does not exist in Islam.

A society not only has the right, but it has the duty to inculcate its citizens with the values it represents. Banning religious clothing in public schools is the only way we can teach young women that what they wear is their decision, not that of their family or religion. The niqab and the burka are ghoulish and have no place in modern society.

For Muslim women to say that they wear the hijab or niqab freely is a lie and is disrespectful to everyone in the West who has fought for the freedoms that we take for granted today. Of course, they are free to wear this form of dress in France, Spain, Italy, and other countries in the West, but they have no such choice in many Muslim countries. Nor are many Muslim women free to go without the veil in Europe because their families force them to conform to strict Islamic interpretations of dress, so please stop saying that you wear the hijab freely.

The other issues she discusses in the book such as female genital mutilation and rapists having the option of marrying their victims are almost too horrible for any modern human being to understand. In my view all religions are bad, but Islam is much worse than most.

Just to be clear, I didn’t arrive at these thoughts through ignorance. I studied Arabic for my military service and have read extensively about Islam. I’m a life-long atheist, never having believed anything in my very Catholic upbringing.

[Onyx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mona Eltahawy’s book tackles a largely taboo subject: Arab Feminism. She talks with candor about head coverings and purity culture, sexual violence and female honor, and what this all means in a modern world.

Before reading this book, there were a lot of topics I simply avoided thinking about on the basis of “well, that’s just how things are done there, I guess.” For example the subject of the hijab stood in an awkward middle ground for me, a non-religious person, between culture sensitivity and abject confusion. Eltahawy’s analysis of the headscarf, in particular the niqab, was succinct and poignant and incredibly illuminating.

Because there is no cultural sensitivity when it comes to erasure of a person’s identity, or the cutting of her genitals; subjecting people to virginity tests and forbidding them from driving cars. No matter the degree of severity, these practices exist to subjugate women, to put the burden of her family’s honor between her legs, to diminish the power of her voice.

They uphold the same patriarchy that is alive and well in the western world. That was the ultimate takeaway from this book: that feminism is belongs to all people, all over the globe. We have our own relationships with misogyny, internalized and not. And the fight for human rights in the Arab world is not so removed from ours at all.

This book is will make you at times angry and sad, but it’s ultimately a necessary read. Eltahawy said in an interview once that she doesn’t use her incendiary feminism to convince people to her cause, but to provoke, to get others to question their beliefs and to engage in discussions.

I didn’t agree with everything I read, but I was provoked, and pushed out my complacent, removed experiences. And for that I’m thankful, because ignorance is never bliss.

[Meryem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insightful book supported by significant research which is always appreciated. Also the author sharing her personal journey and choices was brave and I personally respect that.

However I do feel when speaking about headscarves (wether it is hijab or niqab) the authors personal experience (and other victims quoted ) does not represent all Arab Muslim women. There is a significant percentage that WILLINGLY choose to dress modestly. Meaning they do so from personal conviction of Gods words in the Quran and not due to external pressure from ‘male guardians’ or to avoid sexual harassment.

I felt quite frustrated reading the first few chapters because if I were not a Muslim myself born in an Arab country I would start to think all women wearing hijab do so to avoid rape which is absurd and overly exaggerated.

It’s quite disappointing that successfully educated Muslim women that stand for their rights to independently wear the hijab/niqab ( I.e visibly Muslim) were not voiced as counterpart.

The spectrum of Muslim women in the Arab world is broad and frankly were are not all victims of the societies we live in.

Same applies to all other points such as freedom of sexuality. Yes I agree one should be free to do whatever they want but again many choose WILLINGLY to abstain from sex until marriage. Feminists (just as they condemn women not given choices due pressure from culture and society) likewise should acknowledge and SUPPORT women that do it willingly from conviction and faith.

In my humble opinion, using our bodies and sexuality as ‘ weapons of choice’ in fighting misogyny is very humiliating to us women before we even discuss its probability of succeeding.

In conclusion I found the book very biased in terms of acknowledging Muslim women along the broad spectrum there is which is much more than the victimised one portrayed in the book.

[Sajda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent read but I didn't really learn anything new. If you've read any of Mona's articles then you can pretty much guess the argument in this book. I did wish there were more analytical arguments + viewpoints about more progressive interpretations of Islamic texts b/c the book seemed a bit one-sided at times.

[Asif · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned halfway this book was no good not because of subject matter under discussion but because of its repetitive and superficial writing style the level of writing is like a school girl writing an essay on the subject wish a better writer could have written a very nice book on this crucial subject rather than this piece of mediocre writing.

[한 카트 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Exhausting read, too angry for my taste. Offers nothing objective on the subject, lots of speculative talk. And I despise the "everyone with a peepee is my enemy" tone of this book.

[Caren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this hard-hitting book expanded on an article she did several years ago for "Foreign Policy", entitled "Why Do They Hate Us?":
http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/23/w...
She illuminates what she calls the "trifecta" of misogyny: state, streets, and home. In her home country of Egypt, women are routinely sexually harassed on the streets. (There is a website where women can note places where they have been harassed: http://harassmap.org/en/ ) In Saudi Arabia, where her family lived for a time when she was young, women still are not allowed to drive cars. Her focus is the Middle East and African Muslim countries, where many women are veiled and need the guardianship of a male to leave their homes. The strength of her book is often her personal experience of the discrimination she is now exposing. Here is a passage from page 104: "Almost every part of my body has been groped or touched without my consent. These assaults happened in Saudi Arabia, where I lived as a teenager, and in Egypt, where I returned to live at the age of twenty-one. The state first forced its hands on my body on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, where in November 2011 five days of clashes occurred between demonstrators trying to protect Tahrir Square and the soldiers and police who attacked the families of revolutionaries and burned the tents of peaceful protesters. The details of what happened to me mattered little to the triage nurse in the emergency room of the private hospital where, about sixteen hours after riot police had broken my arms and sexually assaulted me, I was trying to get medical care. 'How could you let them do that to you? Why didn't you resist?' " She continues with a further description of how the policeman to whom she appealed for help threatened her with gang rape by another group of his men. Many passages of this book are far more upsetting than this one. I was shocked that she was even groped during a family pilgrimage to Mecca when she was quite young (see pages 50-51). She talks of the years when she chose to be veiled, during which a woman on public transportation, who wore a veil over her face in addition to her headscarf, asked the author why she, too, was not veiling her face, asking if she would not herself prefer a "wrapped to an unwrapped candy". I felt like cheering when the author responded, "I am a woman, not a candy." [Side note: My younger daughter said she had heard teens use that candy analogy after they took part in "purity" ceremonies in their conservative Christian churches here in Kentucky.] The anger crackles and sparks off of the page until this reader, being also female, was nearly shaking in rage as well. She says she has been told that women's emancipation must wait for a general revolution to be successful. She is having none of that; misogyny must end right along with other changes being sought.
This really is a powerful book, but don't read it unless you are ready for some very unpleasant reading.
Here is the author being interviewed on BookTv:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?325621-1...

[Nessreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is difficult - painful - for me to read, but I think necessary. I cringed at Eltahawy's brutal and harsh but honest and impassioned speech(es), both in agreement and disagreement, and her accounts of severely mistreated women all over the world, and specifically in the Middle East, "for their protection." Worst of all, it was difficult for me to read some of her words reflecting many of my own thoughts and experiences.

This book made me realize why, when people who don't know me very well tell me how strong a woman they think I am, I reject it. It made me think of all the things I could never say out loud or write about or discuss with anyone else, not even with myself, on pain of punishment for blasphemy or being called a whore. It made me think of all the women I grew up with in Jeddah and the awful experiences we had that we took to be normal or deserved, as a coping mechanism, and how much of it has damaged us.

There were moments while reading this that I tuned out Eltahawy, when I felt like she was beginning to lecture me the way all my oppressors did, the very same people she wants me to fight presumably. I could hear her rage turning into judgment.

I wouldn't say this book is perfect, but it did make me pay attention, and it started a real, honest conversation. I recommend.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative to the Western reader....a great primer on women's rights issues in the Middle East.

[Nick Imrie]

I can't quite figure out why this book lost my interest.

Eltahawy has a chatty style which is easy and engaging to read. This subject matter is interesting to me. And yet, I just kept putting it down, always intending to come back to it, and never quite getting around to it.

I wonder if it's something to do with the title, which strongly suggests the Eltahawy is going to explain why the Middle East needs a sexual revolution, but Eltahawy seems to evade the issue. I suppose that's partly because the 'why' is obvious to anyone who would read this book: the subjugation of women in the Middle East causes them a great deal of misery and making people miserable is wrong. Like many lefties, her position is so axiomatically correct to her that she can't seem to make an argument in support of it. For example, Eltahawy takes it as given that beating and raping your wife is wrong. And let me be clear here, I absolutely agree, I'm sure we all do. But simply pointing out the vast amount of abuse that happens in Middle Eastern societies isn't an argument against it. There are those who think that wife beating is a necessary part of an orderly society, and pointing out that women don't like to be raped by their husbands won't persuade a man who thinks it's a wife's duty to submit.

So who's the intended reader? I suspect the reader, most of the time, is intended to be the average well-intentioned Westerner, who doesn't know much about the situation and would be horrified to learn about the true extent of misogyny in the Middle East. But I also get the impression that Eltahawy often shifts her attention to other potential readers. On the one hand she has the ultra-conservatives of her own society arguing that the oppression of women is integral to their culture and religion - and on the other hand Western racists arguing, well, the same but for less flattering reasons. Sometimes, Eltahawy seems to be arguing against one or the other, and sometimes speaking to moderates in the middle, which can be confusing. For example, at some points she vehemently argues that misogyny is not integral to Islam, and one gets the feeling she's arguing against the western racists. At other points she emphasizes that there is a great deal of scriptural support for misogyny, and one feels that she is speaking to the Muslim moderate who wishes to hand-wave the whole problem as 'not real Islam'.

But by trying to be all things to all readers, she ends up confused and contradicting herself: sometimes blaming and sometimes defending Islam. Sometimes defending and sometimes blaming culture. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the chapter on Virginity. Eltahawy points out that virginity is so highly prized that it's almost an idolatry, and then for the rest of the chapter she blames 'The God of Virginity'. But this is side-stepping this issue. Is the God of Virginity actually Allah, the God of Islam? She won't make this argument because she doesn't want to blame Islam. Is it some component of Middle Eastern culture? She won't make this argument because she doens't want to denigrate her culture. So she's left treating her metaphor 'Virginity is like a God' as if it were the real cause.

This habit of avoiding laying the blame sometimes leads her to silliness. Like many well-intentioned people, in order to avoid condemning any particular societies, she stresses that all societies suffer from some misogyny. When discussing FGM, she points out that some doctors recommended clitoridectomy in England and the USA during the 19th Century, and therefore it's not just a Middle Eastern problem. This is daft. FGM in the Middle East has been practised for thousands of years as a rite of passage. In some societies it's near universal. There's nowhere near equivalent to a couple of Victorian quacks suggesting it as a medical treatment in a few cases, and being almost universally ignored.

Finally, I felt her use of anecdote was sometimes a little self-indulgent. Her stories of being raised in Saudi Arabia, and how that effected her choice to veil, and eventually to unveil, was interesting and useful for understanding how a culture perpetuates itself. Her ancedotes about how annoying it is to debate more conserative Muslims, like Medhi Hasan, seemed like an excuse for a rant. Or even an excuse to bring up her successful career as a pundit.

[Alexandra Daw · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the title of this book doesn’t draw you in, nothing will. This passionate polemic from award-winning journalist Mona Eltahawy commands our attention and warns against political correctness blinding us to the blatant gender inequality alive and well in the Middle East.

Many of us will remember watching the scenes of the Egyptian Revolution in Tahrir Square during 2011. This was part of what is now referred to as the Arab Spring. Women marched alongside men to free themselves from oppressive regimes. But what has changed for women, if anything, in these countries? Mona Eltahawy is well qualified to answer this question. Born in Port Said, she has lived in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Israel and was a news reporter for many years in the Middle East including 5 years for Reuters as a correspondent. In November 2011 Egyptian riot police assaulted Eltahawy, breaking her left arm and right hand as well as sexually assaulting her.

Eltahawy writes from the heart. If you want confirmation that the personal is indeed political, look no further than this attestation:

“It is no exaggeration to say that the hijab has consumed a large portion of my intellectual and emotional energy since I first put on a headscarf. I might have stopped wearing one, but I never stopped wrestling with what veiling means for Muslim women.”

She describes the veil “be it the hijab or the niqab” as “a white flag raised to signal our surrender to the Islamists and their conservatism.”
And, more powerfully, “choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off.”

Virginity tests, “blood money”, lack of penal codes or grossly discriminatory penal codes, banning of women from sport, the infantilisation of women in law – all these contribute to the institutionalisation of misogyny in the Middle East.

This tract is not an easy read by any means. But it is 2015 and we are forced to question why, as Eltahawy reminds us:

“Saudi Arabia....fuels so many of the world’s cars with its oil” yet ”bans half its population from driving.”

And again:

“If any ethnic or religious group were being treated the way Saudi women are treated, such an apartheid would long ago have been condemned, and Saudi Arabia boycotted, by the United State and other Western nationals.”

Them’s fighting words!

Someone once said “The pen is mightier than the sword” – Eltahawy studies the etymology of the Arabic language and notes that words for feminism and (non-derogatory) words for homosexual did not exist until recently. Changes to discriminatory language help and yet in many Middle Eastern countries a man’s word still has more value than that of a woman in law.

Women in the Middle East, with the support of their sisters in the West, should take heart and courage from Elahawy’s words, break the silence and win their freedom.

[Sonia Crites · Rating 5 out of 5]

What to say about this book. The facts in it were deeply disturbing and I wanted to believe she has some angle some reason to exaggerate. I would walk away from it only to go right back. Rage and disbelief as I hear the reality of my sisters in the Middle East and know we still have so far to go here as well. This is a book worth reading even if reading it is hard. I wish I could thank her for her courage in writing it.