Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
May 30 14 tweets 5 min read
I love it when someone excitedly shares that they've just seen @allatoncemovie! And I love it even more when they tell me they read my essay about it.

Essay: The Menopause Multiverse

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-me… #EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce
There's a wonderful scene when Evelyn, a Chinese-American woman played by Michelle Yeoh, is called on to jump between universes–”’verse jump”–to accumulate skills from the alternative lives all the other Evelyns are living to save the multiverse from a “great evil.”
It just so happens that a version of Evelyn is given this monumental news in a janitor’s closet just down the hall from the open-plan office where Evelyn of this universe, her husband, and her father are in a meeting w/IRS agent (the delightfully unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis)
As the IRS agent drones on about receipts that don’t add up, Evelyn of this universe appears to have drifted away. The agent and Evelyn’s father both think she’s incapable of focusing in the here and now and yell at her, whereas she is in fact learning to ‘verse jump.
Hello! Superhero in the making! Who can focus on tax receipts?

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-me…
What if that is what brain fog, one of the myriad impacts of perimenopause, is? The difficulty concentrating and thinking clearly can be disconcerting, yes. But I like to think of brain fog as the liberation of our imagination by perimenopause...
...nudging us into mental avenues we have not had the power or the audacity to tread before.

It's called brain fog because it's non-linear thinking that doesn't pay attention/stay focused in ways that we're “supposed to,” and patriarchy demonizes & pathologizes what is different
It isn't just brain fog that I saw on the screen. I'm in the throes of perimenopause and it is kicking my fucking ass.

Whenever I want anyone to know how utterly wrenching–and also liberating– it is to go through perimenopause, I will say, YELL: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
And that is why I'm excited to edit the menopause anthology #BloodyHell for @unbounders. It will include a "multiverse" of menopause experiences! Pledge your support and get rewards in return

unbound.com/books/bloody-h…
During “brain fog” episode,when Waymond, Evelyn's husband from Alpha verse is in the janitor’s closet explaining to her about ‘verse jumping, he picks up her frustration & impatience because Evelyn down the hall is being called by the IRS agent to “focus” & to not be distracted
“My dear Evelyn, I know you. With every passing moment, you feel you might’ve missed your chance to make something of your life. I’m here to tell you: every rejection, every disappointment, has led you here, to this moment. Don’t let anything distract you from it.”
And Evelyn looks genuinely happy for the first time since the film's start. I like to think it’s because she understands that the next two hours are an allegory for menopause. Evelyn knows that this film is actually The Multiverse of the Menopause. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-me…
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More from @monaeltahawy

May 29
I’ve often said that when I moved to the US in 2000, I was shocked at how Christianity influenced politics and at how many white Americans have a delusional confidence in their government and its institutions.
They are childishly naive in believing that institutions will save them. That stubborn belief in U.S. exceptionalism undergirds the refusal to see the fascism that Trump brought. Black, Indigenous, and people of colour have no such delusions feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Abortion is a human right, not a bonus or a reward we must earn.

My book The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a manifesto for destroying patriarchy. The “sins” form a roadmap for the fight against abortion bans everywhere feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-se…
Read 7 tweets
May 27
The idea that a right could be revoked is so alien to so many white Americans for whom whiteness is about more–more land, more wealth, more rights–not less.
The privilege of whiteness meant that for many in the U.S., there was something wrong with you if you were losing rights. And so banning abortion was the stuff of a dystopia they could keep at a distance, that they refused to recognize. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
The privilege of whiteness meant that for many in the U.S., there was something wrong with you if you lost a right. It only happened to people who weren't white, far away somewhere.
Read 16 tweets
May 26
Fascism doesn't happen overnight. Theocracy is not built in a day. Remember the “Creeping Sharia'' crowd–white supremacist, Christian zealots, who passed bills and laws in the early 2000s to ban a non-existent threat from an “Islamic law” that no one in the U.S. said they wanted.
Recognize that those who yelled “Creeping Sharia” loudest are the same ones who did not just creep upon the nation with Christian zealotry but announced it at every turn. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Because they were white and Christian they were therefore not considered dangerous. 

No matter how often those of us who have fought fascism–be it via military rule/rule of religious fundamentalists–warned, white Americans arrogantly shook their head it couldn’t happen here
Read 5 tweets
May 25
Next time you are tempted to ask how women in Iran or Afghanistan could have “let it happen” and lost rights, ask yourself how you allowed white, Christian zealots to use democracy to cut it at its knees by destroying the right to abortion–a right which most Americans support.
And recognize that the destruction of abortion rights is but the first of many other destructions. Anyone who is not an able-bodied, white cisgender heterosexual man should fear what is to come. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Next time white Americans wonder how this could’ve happened here, remember that while you were looking for Commander Fred, ready to rape Offred as his wife Serena held her down, it was your fathers,uncles, brothers & husbands who voted for zealots stripping you of bodily autonomy
Read 6 tweets
May 25
One of the reasons that I love Red Clocks by Leni Zumas is that it punctures white supremacy and its delusions and dangers while also examining abortion rights, in a way that The Handmaid’s Tale does not.
“In this novel and beyond, I want my work to face the trouble of whiteness: how it’s been constructed, how its power is maintained, how we could imagine dismantling that power,” Leni Zumas said. electricliterature.com/on-dismantling…
We see Zumas do that for example via the friendship between The Daughter (Mattie), “a white person becoming aware of her own whiteness,” and Yasmine, a young Black woman. Mattie “is starting to realize how white privilege organizes her place in the world.”
Read 7 tweets
May 25
Next time you are tempted to ask how women in Iran or Afghanistan could have “let it happen,” ask yourself how you allowed white, Christian zealots to use democracy to cut it at its knees by destroying the right to abortion–a right which most Americans support. #RoeVWade
The same arrogance and naiveté that made so many white Americans think Trump would never become president is that same arrogance and naiveté that made so many think "it would never happen here" about abortion bans as well. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
It is easy to see theocracy when the theocrats don’t look like you. 

But it’s imperative to understand that the theocrats who look like you and those who don’t both follow the same rule book: control desire and control our bodies. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-wh…
Read 4 tweets

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