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7 Sep, 6 tweets, 2 min read
I could not say, for the longest time, that I desired men and women. I could not say, for the longest time, that being monogamous was suffocating me.
What does desire look like liberated from the pressure of heteronormativity & enforced monogamy? What desire is a cis woman who is child free by choice “allowed” to have at 54rs of age? What does desire look like liberated from pressure to have children?
feministgiant.com/p/essay-my-des…
And perhaps hardest of all: during this past year, I could not say that I feared I had lost that ability to desire. I feared that I had lost a life force I had fought so hard for.
I did not know whether it was the stress and grief of a global pandemic or the unpredictability of perimenopause that seemed to have wrenched open a chasm that swallowed up my desire. feministgiant.com/p/essay-my-des…
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feministgiant.com
Hear the audio essay:

m.soundcloud.com/mona-eltahawy-…

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More from @monaeltahawy

Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
12 Sep
Three and a half years after 9/11, a Black American feminist scholar of Islam called Dr. Amina Wadud became the first woman imam to lead a mixed-gender Friday congregational prayer--100 of us--50 women and 50 men. #20thanniversary911
It was one of the most moving moments of my life. The prayer was co-sponsored by the (now defunct) Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA), of which I was a board member. #20thanniversary911 A hall with rows of people prostrated in Muslim prayer
The PMUNA had come to be in the aftermath of 9/11, as part of the vigorous internal Muslim arguments and debates those awful attacks had shaken into being. Remember: al-Qaeda has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims. #20thanniversary911 feministgiant.com/p/the-day-afte…
Read 10 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
11 Sep
Cristiano Ronaldo starting with my #MUFC boys again.

I've always liked Ronaldo but I have significantly wheeled back my admiration for his footballing talent after sexual assault accusations against him.
#MUNNEW
The abusive behaviour of superstars, including our former captain Ryan lGiggs, must be directly connected to the behaviour of abusers in the stands and in the pubs who watch them.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-when-f…
I love football. I have supported #MUFC since 1976 when I was nine years old.

I will always condemn and target patriarchy and the ways it enables and protects abuse of any kind, including by football superstars.

#MUNNEW
Read 7 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
10 Sep
On the anniversary of #September11, I usually remember those killed in the attacks and the many more killed in the wars of revenge in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I quote from June Jordan's Some of Us Did Not Die feministgiant.com/p/essay-some-o…
“I realized that regardless of the tragedy, regardless of the grief, regardless of the monstrous challenge, Some of Us Have Not Died. Some of us did NOT die…And what shall we do, we who did not die?” June Jordan asked in a keynote presentation at Barnard College on Nov 9, 2001.
Days after 9/11, a man tried to set my local mosque on fire and to shoot 2 Muslim men who tried to stop him in Seattle, where I lived at the time. He was too drunk to succeed.

Twelve years later, another man succeeded in setting my brother's local mosque on fire in the Midwest.
Read 10 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
9 Sep
I've been reading essays I wrote for the 10th anniversary of #September11 as I prepare to write an essay for the 20th anniversary.

Coming soon to FEMINIST GIANT.

feministgiant.com
For most of my life, the US was never anything more than vacation memories. My family visited in 1982 for a vacation that marked the end of our years of living in the UK and which came just before we moved to Saudi Arabia.
But then I fell in love with an American and I flew to NYC to meet him for the millennium celebrations and even though we fought and I gave him back his engagement ring, I agreed to marry him and I did what I vowed I'd never do: I left my job and my home for a man.
Read 4 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
9 Sep
My paternal grandmother had 8 children. My maternal grandmother had 11 children (she was pregnant 14 times). My mother is the eldest of those children and she has 3 children of her own. I am the eldest of those children and I am glad to have none of my own feministgiant.com/p/unmothering
Most books/essays I've seen about being childfree by choice are written by white cis women. We need to hear from more women of colour & women from different cultural & faith backgrounds as well as trans men and non-binary people who choose to be childfree. My own book is in works
It is the first anniversary of my newsletter FEMINIST GIANT. I launched it a year ago so that I could write essays like this.

You can hear the audio essay I record to accompany my essays here
soundcloud.com/mona-eltahawy-…
Read 7 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
8 Sep
Red—>Buzzcut—>Indigo/Violet 📷 @rerutled Mona leaning again a red brick wall, her hands in the pocket
And in between
📷 @rerutled Six small pictures of Mona's head showing her hair colour as
I shaved all my hair off to shed what I once had needed, thankful that my crown of fire brought me here. I have turned my body - including my hair - into a canvas upon which I paint my own hieroglyphics because if I don’t, patriarchy will. It always has.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ki…
Read 4 tweets

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