Thread by @monaeltahawy

I was a contributing oped writer for NYT 2014-2018. I wrote opeds for them while I lived in #Egypt that personally endangered me with the #Egyptian regime. Last time I spoke w/opinion page editor Jim Bennet he asked me to stop saying “Fuck” on social media for the readers’ sake.

And now he’s defending the amplification of fascism also for the readers.

I was never a NYT employee and yet Bennet wanted to police my language because saying “fuck” was too much on social media.

And here the same fascism I fought in Egypt is amplified, not considered too much

The day after Bennet asked me to stop saying “Fuck” on social media, I started #WhyISayFuck, wrote an essay about it, and a chapter on the importance of profanity in my latest book The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls. #FascismIsWorseThanFuck

Soon after I wrote this for the NYT, calling Trump the American Sisi (L), a pro-regime newspaper in #Egypt “punished” me by putting my picture on the front page under a banner headline that called me a “sex activist” (translation: whore). (R) I was living in #Cairo.

Soon after I wrote this, a pro-regime TV host in #Egypt used his show to call me a “whore” and “worse than a dog.”I wrote many opeds for NYT exposing & condemning fascism in #Egypt and now the opinion editor of that same paper gives a platform for US fascism.But don’t say “Fuck!”

Fascism isn’t an “idea” to be debated. It’s a reality many of us have lived. It is dangerous.

That Bennet is a white man demanding “civility” of me at this most uncivil of times while giving a platform to another white man’s call for fascism is EXACTLY what’s wrong w/“civility.”

Fascism is the true profanity and vulgarity. Not my saying “Fuck.”

Fascism is the danger to readers. Fascism is what stops conversations.
Fascism is what endangers lives.

Saying “Fuck” on social media does not.

Fuck civility. Fuck fascism.

#WhyISayFuck

In case my position on profanity and fascism and Trump is not clear: I recorded this in Lafayette Park in front of the White House in January.

🎥 @rerutled

Mona Eltahawy Would Like You to Fuck Right Off With Your Civility Politics google.com/amp/s/www.vice…

I became a journalist in 1989 in #Egypt. As a news reporter, I worked hard to expose Mubarak regime violence, as well as govts around the world who supported him & now Sisi. And the military-backed regime in #Egypt knows which is why they did this to me in Nov 2011. Fuck fascism

Civility will not overturn the patriarchy- or racism or fascism.

An excerpt from the chapter on the importance of profanity from my latest book.

Fuck civility. Fuck racism. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck fascism. lithub.com/mona-eltahawy-…