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28 Mar, 6 tweets, 2 min read
The four times I met Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, she terrified and thrilled me. She spoke the truth and "the truth is savage and dangerous."

She was savage and dangerous, and feminism has to be savage and dangerous.

My new essay. feministgiant.com/p/essay-nawal-… #NawalElSaadawi
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feministgiant.com
The 1st time I "met" Nawal, she was on a documentary film on our TV set in London in 1980: an Egyptian woman with bright white hair who owned her power and spoke with absolute confidence in her words. An Egyptian man criticised her, complaining she was ruining Egypt’s reputation.
I can’t remember what she said but I do remember, more than 40 years later, that she terrified and thrilled 13 year-old me.

Who was this woman who was so powerful that her words alone could ruin an entire nation’s reputation? I want that! I want to know her! #NawalElSaadawi
Read and share my essay and subscribe to FEMINIST GIANT.

feministgiant.com/p/coming-soon?…
Read my new essay for the other times I met Nawal and how her feminism and writing influenced me and many other feminists in our part of the world and the entire world. And subscribe to FEMINIST GIANT - link in essay feministgiant.com/p/essay-nawal-…

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More from @monaeltahawy

Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
29 Mar
I publish my weekly essays for FEMINIST GIANT on Sunday. Here are the past month's:

"They said, ‘You are a savage and dangerous woman.'
I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous," Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian feminist who died last week.
"The world is full of sexually frustrated women who are are taught, and obey, that they must wait until they are married (to a man) to have sex, and yet I’m unaware of any massacres committed by those women." On the Atlanta terrorist
Feminism is not: supporting a woman simply because she is a woman, especially when her vote hurts mostly Black, Indigenous and women of colour. On #BespokeFeminism, which is tailored to perfectly fit just the individual wearing it.
Read 5 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
28 Mar
New essay: the feminist Dr. Nawal El Saadawi died last Sunday at the age of 89. I wrote about the times I met her, what I learned, and the impact of her work.

feministgiant.com/publish/post/3…
Since Nawal died, I've spoken to media outlets in Nigeria, South Africa, the UK and the US and I joined six other feminists from our region to speak with a Lebanese feminist about her and pay our tributes. Here are the links I have: This is @nprweekend npr.org/2021/03/27/981…
And this is BBC Radio 4's Last Word #NawalElSaadawi bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…
Read 6 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
27 Mar
Nine years ago exactly, she found me when I most needed to be found. It was my first trip after the casts on my arms had come off. I’d vowed I’d gift myself tattoos after my bones healed but I didn’t know of what. And then during a lecture tour of Italy, Sekhmet found me in Turin A statue of goddess Sekhmet, standing holding a staff in her
And a few weeks later, she became my first tattoo Mona’s forearms: on her right a tattoo of goddess Sekhmet,
Getting Sekhmet tattooed on my arm was part of what I call Deliberate Beauty. I explain feministgiant.com/p/deliberate-b…
Read 10 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
26 Mar
#Egypt: 2 weeks ago, a woman died after “falling” from her 6th floor balcony after her landlord & 2 other men attacked her for having a man in her apartment.

#Kenya, a man pushed a woman from 12th floor window because she refused to have sex with him nairobinews.nation.co.ke/editors-picks/…
The woman thrown out a 12th floor window in #Kenya landed on a 9th floor balcony, suffered serious pelvic injuries and was hospitalized. And victim blamed as the above article explains.

Wherever we are, patriarchy enables & protects cis men's ownership & violence over our bodies
On the woman thrown out of a 12th floor window and the DJs who mocked and victim-blamed her
Read 4 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
25 Mar
"Revolution begins with the self, in the self...It may be lonely. Certainly painful. It’ll take time. We’ve got time...We’d better take the time to fashion revolutionary selves, revolutionary lives, revolutionary relationships.," oni Cade Bambara (March 25, 1939-Dec. 9, 1995)
The above is from this ever-relevant 1969 essay - On the Issue of Roles. Happy Born Day, Toni Cade Bambara! blackfeministmind.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/toni-c…
Read the above essay and other essential writing by Black feminists in The Black Woman - An Anthology, edited by Toni Cade Bambara The cover of the book The Black Woman - An Anthology: On a p
Read 5 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
23 Mar
This has made my day. This is one of my favorite pictures of me and this misogynist shit is using it to show that “All feminists turn ugly once they cross 30s 40s. The bitterness start showing.” May I always be ugly to the patriarchy and its misogynist shits (📷 @rerutled) Split frame: Mona in a sequ...
“wow, this proves the theory that all hardcore feminists are hideous to look at.”

May I always be hideous to the patriarchy and its misogynist shits Image
Here’s a picture of me and Salma Hayek together in London in 2013. She is of Lebanese descent and my tattoo is Arabic calligraphy Mona and Salma Hayek with t...
Read 7 tweets

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