Thread by @monaeltahawy

When I became a journalist in #Egypt 30yrs ago, I learned that victims of rape didn’t go to the police because the police would shoo them away or rape them because the women were considered “damaged goods anyway.” I wrote this about women speaking out now feministgiant.substack.com/p/why-do-they-…

Back in 1990, I was told that rape victims, if they were affluent, went to a psychiatrist in search of ways to not fall apart, to keep stitched tightly those seams of silence which are now bursting open in #Egypt.

At a feminist gathering in #Cairo in 2013 organized by a women’s group I worked with,a lawyer told us that a rape victim who did decide to go to the police could be locked up in a room at precinct for 24hrs to protect her from her family in case they tried to kill her from shame.

These past few months, an unprecedented number of women have been exposing sexual violence. It takes guts to speak out.

When authorities arrested witnesses in the case of gang rape of an 18yo woman, it was clear they want to terrorize women into silence. #Egypt

That same regime that wants to terrorize women into silence, has been arresting young, mostly working class women with massive followings on TikTok, accusing them of “violating family values.”

Misogyny, classism, slut-shaming, and the criminalization of women’s autonomy: #Egypt

It is imperative to see who is criminalized and who is believed. Which women are taken seriously and for how long?

Remember this is a regime that is misogynist & predatory - the president is ex-military intelligence head who approved of “virginity tests” for female activists.

What justice can women and queer people ever get when the State is predatory and patriarchal. And when that patriarchy is reflected and magnified by the Street - public life - and the Home - private life. feministgiant.substack.com/p/why-do-they-…

Whereas the State oppresses everyone, the State and the Street and the Home together oppress women and #LGBTQ people: women and queer people are the nexus of the patriarchal alliance of State, Street, and Home.

#Egypt

And that’s why I say that a cis-gender, heterosexual dick-swinging revolution is not enough.

We already had one of those almost 10 years ago.

Without a revolution against patriarchy, the same patriarchal collusion between State, Street, and Home continue.s #Egypt

We will have a reckoning with our culture & religion, with military rulers & Islamists - two sides of one coin. Until that reckoning can happen on the streets of #Egypt again, it is happening on the streets of social media and it will play out vs parents, friends, partners.

This - which I posted in Arabic and English on my Instagram account - summarizes much of my new essay on #Egypt.

And both the headline and cover photo for this essay reference my 2012 essay: Why Do They Hate Us? About the need for a feminist revolution in #Egypt, the region, and really everywhere foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/23/why…