Tweet

Mona Eltahawy

30 Nov, 11 tweets, 6 min read

In its latest war on women’s bodies, #Egypt’s public prosecution is investigating aspiring model Salma El-Shimy for a photo session at the Saqqara pyramid plateau that she posted on social media english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/…

The Sisi regime investigates & arrests women for posing, dancing, singing fully clothed on social media. Meanwhile,the more they undress, the more #Egyptian men are celebrated for virility, masculinity, strength. Remember police cadets on display for Sisi? feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-macho-…

When they undress, #Egyptian male celebrities expect to be praised. They are not slut-shamed or criminalized. Egyptian women are criminalized, slut-shamed & punished in the name of “morality” - whether they are in “revealing” clothes or hijab. feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-macho-…

In the name of “morality” the #Egyptian regime has arrested and jailed at least 9 young, mostly working class women for singing, dancing, and posting selfies on Tik-Tok - fully clothed FYI. huffingtonpost.in/entry/egypt-ti…

The war on women’s bodies comes at a time when unprecedented # of women are exposing sexual assault. Sisi’s regime is trying to terrorize women into silence, whether via arrests of witnesses in support of a gang rape victim or imprisonment of TikTok women. feministgiant.substack.com/p/why-do-they-…

You know the video of those shirtless #Egyptian police cadets on floats that people joked looked like Pride parade? Those bare and barrel-chested police cadets graduated into a police force paid to entrap, arrest and torture #LGBTQ people.

Patriarchy-in this case the #Egyptian regime-reserves its moral crusades for queer people & women, especially the daughters of the working class, but not the sons of the wealthy who rape & sexually assault, nor the police who bare barrel chests for Sisi. feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-macho-…

My feminist essays are all here. Sign up - it’s free. And if you can pay, it helps keep my work free and available to all feministgiant.substack.com/23fd4f4f

I wrote this in 2015 after #Egypt arrested female performers for “inciting debauchery.” As I said - it’s not just Islamists who obsess over “morality” but military-backed dictators like Sisi and earlier Mubarak. google.com/amp/s/www.nyti…

It is a mistake to think that only Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood obsess over morality. Everyone in #Egypt does. Nominally secular regimes will often outdo religious conservatives in the “decency” contest. And everyone in between cheers.

The lesson is that “respectability politics” has the power to unite military regimes and religious zealots alike because being “respectable” means seizing and taking control and ultimately violating the bodies of women and queer people feministgiant.substack.com/p/why-do-they-…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @monaeltahawy

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

30 Nov

@bunkybun

There were large protests against further proposed restrictions to abortion in #Poland on Saturday, which marked the 102nd anniversary of women’s suffrage in the country.
p.dw.com/p/3lyCt?maca=e… h/t @bunkybun

Women’s Strike has organized the largest protests in #Poland since the fall of communism in 1989 to fight the near-total ban on abortion. And their core message has been “Fuck off” to priests and the far-right govt feministgiant.substack.com/p/fuck-is-a-fe… #StrajkKobiet #AborcjaBezGranic

When the fascist fucks in your country use a pandemic to tighten their grip on your body with a near total ban on abortion, the path to freedom must be paved with profanity. Politeness is capitulation. Fuck is a feminist word. #StrajkKobiet

Read 8 tweets

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

30 Nov

@NewBlackMan

The whiteness of the art world:

"Terms like “flesh tone” raise the question: Who does the art world think is holding the brush?" h/t @NewBlackMan thewalrus.ca/the-racist-his…

I wrote about the whiteness of the art world here, when I examined who the “everywoman” that a recently unveiled sculpture in the UK was meant to represent feministgiant.substack.com/p/for-mary-wol…

“She’s everywoman and clothes would have restricted her... she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be.”

Who the fuck is “we” and who the fuck is the “every” in that “everywoman” and why the fuck is she young and white?

📷 Jill Mead/The Guardian

Read 14 tweets

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

29 Nov

“I think twice before I share moments of vulnerability on social media.When you’re a feminist accustomed to having the dogs of patriarchy let loose on you, you become more comfortable with vowing to bring pain to your enemies than to admitting to your own” feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-fallin…

But I have learned to do both. And unfailingly, and surprisingly, when I do share my pain, it is held with such care and love by my community of total strangers and comrades online that I have to remind myself that softness drives the revolution as much as rage.

I refuse to emerge from this pandemic as if unscathed. I insist that we all be scathed, that we refuse to be the people we were at the start of the pandemic. A pandemic, like revolution, does not happen overnight.

We will emerge, our hearts unhealed and scarred but awesome.

Read 4 tweets

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

29 Nov

"White liberal women want to save Muslim women and white conservative women want to feel superior to Muslim women and so refuse to see anything in their beliefs that consigns them to the subservience & submission they think Muslim women must live with." feministgiant.substack.com/p/if-amy-coney…

Liberal or conservative, white women in the U.S. are more obsessed with Muslim women and whatever they think is oppressing Muslim women than they are at recognizing their own oppressions.

So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia or Iran, that so many white women did not pay enough attention to the theocracy that white supremacy was building right here at home.

Read 5 tweets

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

29 Nov

"I am writing to you because I want you to know the importance of telling a man to shut the fuck up.

I am writing to you because I want you to know the importance & power of being dangerous when you ask questions that challenge, not comfort, oppressors"
feministgiant.substack.com/p/letter-dear-…

"I am writing to you because I want you to know that “getting along” & “uniting” & “being civil” with white supremacist patriarchy makes you complicit in its crimes. We must never “get along” with fascists or “unite” with white supremacists.We must always “argue” with patriarchy"

"I am writing to urge you to stop wanting to be liked, and demand instead to be free.

Polite and well-behaved girls do not terrify the patriarchy. We must terrify patriarchy." feministgiant.substack.com/p/letter-dear-…

Read 5 tweets

Mona Eltahawy

@monaeltahawy

29 Nov

This slim book is one of the most powerful I’ve read recently. “Being Native American in this country means often having a very different take on American history and historic figures generally accepted as national heroes. patreon.com/posts/42251360

“Just because they’re your heroes doesn’t make them automatically ours, since what benefitted non-Native settlers was often dangerously harmful to indigenous communities,” Susan Power, who is from the Dakota Nation, writes in her forward.

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the order for the mass hanging of 38 Dakota men, the largest mass execution in US history.

In 1875, Lincoln’s widow Mary Todd Lincoln was tried on charges of insanity and committed to a sanitarium.

Read 5 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!