My essay on #LoujainAlhathloul: So clamorous was her courage, so loud her refusal to break that it made her more of a liability for the #Saudi regime inside prison than outside, so they sent her home, where her enforced silence would be a reprieve for them
feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…
Loujain’s astonishing courage and tenacity have long wrong-footed the Saudi regime. In 2014, when she was 25, she was arrested for the first time while attempting to drive across the border from the United Arab Emirates - where she had a valid driver’s licence - to Saudi Arabia.
In March 2018, the Saudis considered Loujain such a threat that they had her rendered from the UAE, where she was studying. She was stopped by security officers as she drove on a highway near her uni in Abu Dhabi, taken from her vehicle & forcibly returned to her home country.
She spent several days in prison before being released, and she was banned from using social media or leaving the country. A few weeks later, in May 2018, MBS had her arrested, held incommunicado for a while, and tortured, including being waterboarded.
In Dec 2020, Loujain was sentenced by a terrorism court. Notice the common thread:
- rendition
-waterboarding
-terrorism court

MBS and the Saudi regime are so threatened by feminism - and Loujain especially - that they consider feminism a form of terrorism.
In 2019, soon after Saudi teen Rahaf was granted refugee status in Canada,and while Loujain was still in prison, the Saudi regime’s “Authority to Counter-Extremism” made a one-minute ad in which it conflated women who escape Saudi male guardianship with men who join
Waterboarding. Electrocution. Sexual assault. Threats of rape and murder. For daring to advocate for women’s rights. For daring to demand an end to the guardianship system - the foundation of patriarchy. feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…
Feminism is an existential threat to authoritarians, whose power is undergirded by patriarchy. A woman escaping Saudi patriarchy=a man who joins an violent extremist group
I am an Egyptian who moved to Saudi Arabia as a teenager, before Loujain was born. I was traumatized into feminism in that kingdom of gender apartheid. And as an Egyptian, I celebrate today--Feb 11--the 10th anniversary of the ouster of Mubarak’s ouster by our #Jan25 Revolution. Crowds in Tahrir Square
Those revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and other countries in the region inspired protestors in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, home to most of the country’s Shia Muslim protesters.
The protestors behind that political revolution might have been silenced by the royal family; the revolution that feminists like Loujain have triggered has broken through. Its vanguard is not a crown prince who claims to be an emancipator of women.
The true leaders are the feminists he has detained and banned from travel and silenced for daring to demand their freedom.

amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
Long live the feminists who do not fear the patriarch.

Long live the feminists who terrify authoritarians. 

Loujain we remembered you and we will continue to lift up your name and the names of your sisters and comrades until you are all free feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-… #FreeLoujain
Sign up for FEMINIST GIANT.

It is free, no paywall, no ads.

If you can pay, it helps to keep it free.

feministgiant.com
This is what I told @dwnews about the release of #LoujainAlhathloul

#JusticeForLoujain #FreeLoujain

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More from @monaeltahawy

13 Feb
Three years ago this week, I beat up a man who groped me in a club. It was fucking glorious. Celebrate that anniversary with me!
feministgiant.com/p/i-beat-my-as… #IBeatMyAssaulter
I’ve lost count of the # times I’ve been sexually assaulted and I know that my reactions have spanned a spectrum, all of them valid. That night it was: Are you fucking kidding me? And my body went into autodrive; it knew exactly what to do.
Tell me your #IBeatMyAssaulter stories
And sign up to FEMINIST GIANT.

It's free, no paywall, no ads.

If you can pay, it helps to keep it free.

feministgiant.com
Read 10 tweets
13 Feb
"I am writing to you because I want you to know that “getting along” and “uniting” and “being civil” w/white supremacist patriarchy makes you complicit in its crimes. We must never “get along” w/fascists. We must never “unite” w/white supremacists..."
" feministgiant.com/p/letter-dear-…
"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 and power of being dangerous when you ask the right questions; questions that challenge, not comfort oppressors."
"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.com/p/letter-dear-…
Read 7 tweets
12 Feb
"But instead of calling the male reporter who initially contacted him, Ducklo tried to intimidate Palmeri by phone in an effort to kill the story. “I will destroy you,” Ducklo told her, according to the sources, adding that he would ruin her reputation if she published it."
"Ducklo made derogatory and misogynistic comments, accusing Palmeri of only reporting on his relationship...because she was “jealous” that an unidentified man in the past had “wanted to fuck” (his female partner) McCammond “and not you.”
Read 6 tweets
12 Feb
In 2014, when she was 25, Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was arrested for the first time for protesting the ban on women driving. She spent 73 days in a women’s detention facility and was to stand trial in terrorism court. feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…
She was given a royal pardon but the conflation of feminism with terrorism was being set.

In 2019 after Saudi teen Rahaf escaped and was granted refugee status in Canada, the regime made an ad which conflated women who escape male guardianship with men who join ISIS. A split screen: on the left...
A columnist with a well-known newspaper called for the execution of feminists as “corruptors on earth.”

And a university labeled feminism a “threat to national security...the danger of which is no less than al-Qaeda or ISIS/Daesh.”

Feminism is an existential to the Saudi regime
Read 7 tweets
11 Feb
My new essay: For Loujain, Who Terrified a Monarchy feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-… #LoujainAlhathloul
Loujain al-Hathloul is the hero of her own story. So clamorous was her courage, so loud was her refusal to break that it created more of a ruckus for the Saudi regime inside prison than outside, so they sent her home, where her enforced silence would be a reprieve for them.
She is not a “goodwill gesture” or a “concession” to Biden by MBS. Women are not bargaining chips to curry favour with your biggest ally so that it continues to arm you to the teeth and look the other way as you commit war crimes with said weapons. feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…
Read 6 tweets
9 Feb
#WhyISayFuck: It is exactly because of this classist, pear-clutching, civility-as-cudgel fuckery feministgiant.com/p/essay-why-i-…
I am from the “If they go low, I will fucking come for them” school of thought. I refuse to be polite or civil with anyone who does not acknowledge my full humanity. Profanity is politically important. feministgiant.com/p/essay-why-i-…
The obsession with civility in the United States is bipartisan and white, and often directed at women, especially Black women and women of colour. The less power a woman has, the less freedom she is given to curse.
Read 10 tweets

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