Thread by @monaeltahawy

Independence and disobedience are not the same thing. I was a very obedient child. I listened. I learned. I behaved. Do we learn to obey or must we learn to disobey? I know I had to learn disobedience.
Essay: The King Herself by @monaeltahawy feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-the-ki…

From v early age, my hair has been the site of a dance between disobedience & independence. Now, in the limited confines of lockdown, the dance took on a more urgent tempo as I learned to liberate myself from what had once given me power so that I could fashion anew my strength

What does a girl look like? Who taught me to be a girl? If pretty is the root of obedience, then ugly surely equals disobedience & independence squared. At the heart of that equation sits femininity, on a 3-legged stool of capitalism, racism, and misogyny.
feministgiant.substack.com/p/coming-soon

“What’s your name? Do you speak English? Are you a boy or a girl?”When I moved to London in 1975 at the age of 7, the first time I went downstairs to play with the other children, they asked me if I was a boy or a girl. My English wasn’t so good and I ran back home.

Femininity had taunted me for decades and in return I scoffed at it. It knew both that I did not want it and that I could not ignore it. feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-the-ki…

“In this hall, there are 16 statues of Sekhmet, ancient Egyptian goddess of retribution and sex.”

Sekhmet, the most revered & feared of my ancestors’ deities, found me at my most vulnerable & helped me weaponize femininity & render my hair the site of excavation & reinvention

My first tattoo - in 2012 - was of Sekhmet all tits and hips. Here was weaponized femininity in the shape of the goddess of retribution and sex. First she’d kick your head in, then she’d fuck your brains out.

Sekhmet filled me with the fire of a weaponized femininity and then she turned it all upside down by directing that fire to burn a path to re/discover Hatshepsut - Egypt’s woman-god-king. Seen 👇🏽 in the form of a woman (L) and a man with chiseled pecs (R)

Was Hatshepsut a boy or a girl? It depends on who was doing the digging. The more I learn about Hatshepsut, especially from queer historians and more popular engagement with that pharaoh, the greater the power available to me.

There was a time when I thought femininity was weak. And then I learned to stand in the power of my femininity. I can flex the feminine and the masculine. And the more I learn about Hatshepsut the greater the power available to me.

Sekhmet told me “Stand in your power” - she is the warrior and the healer; she is Disobedience.

Hatshepsut showed me how - she is the King Herself who walked away from gender; she is Independence.

My new essay is about disobedience and independence feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-the-ki…

For more on ways to Defy, Disobey, Disrupt - sign up! I will always keep my essays free and accessible to all. No paywall. If you have funds, a paid subscription helps me to keep my newsletter free and my writing independent feministgiant.substack.com/p/coming-soon?…