The Guardian talks to Mona Eltahawy.

Were you anxious about the outrage you might provoke in some quarters by speaking openly about misogyny within your own community?

I’ve got a lot of hate… But it’s hate from people I’m glad I’m pissing off. As a woman with an opinion, you get a lot of shit.

Are all religions misogynistic?

Absolutely, to some degree. All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women’s sexuality… They’re obsessed with my vagina. I tell them: stay outside my vagina unless I want you in there.

No invitation, no admission.
// <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”http://assets.guim.co.uk/stylesheets/c3092f84a9e6bb010702f1db8fabbf3e/global.css”/> // // -1){styleSheet.media="screen";return true;}} setTimeout(setMedia,null,styleSheet);} function useCss(){for(var i=0,totalStyleSheetLinks=styleSheetLinks.length;i0&&alpha… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Denise Balkissoon at the Globe and Mail talks to Mona Eltahawy.

In Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, she dismantles what she calls the “trifecta of oppression” working against Arab women: the state, the street and the home, which “work together for their own benefit by keeping girls and women down.”

She takes the reader to Jordan, where a man can escape a rape charge by marrying his victim; to Egypt, where unending street harassment leads families to impose curfews on their daughters; and to Lebanon, which recently decriminalized marital rape.

It’s a must-read.

You say many people are “all too happy to hear how badly Muslim men treat their women,” even when their

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The NY Times has an excerpt from Mona Eltahawy’s new book as an op-ed. I reviewed the book for the next Free Inquiry; it’s terrific.

I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia. I wanted to save my sanity, and so I struck a deal with God: I’d cover up, as I was taught a good Muslim girl should, if God would save me from a breakdown that I was sure would come in that country where women were considered the walking embodiment of sin. I wanted to hide — from eyes and hands that made going out anywhere, especially unaccompanied, hellish.

Almost immediately, I missed the wind

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Independent talks to and about Mona Eltahawy, who has a book coming out (which I get the privilege of reviewing for Free Inquiry).

Egyptian-American Eltahawy, who lived in the UK between the ages of seven and 15, believes the radicalisation of young Western Muslims is only partly explained by a “feeling of marginalisation and alienation” and being “lost between different cultures”.

“For some people religion becomes their only form of expression and opposition and it can take a very violent turn,” she says. “This is not a majority of people who identify as Muslim. We are showing you can still belong to this religion; you can still be a Muslim and find other ways of expressing your

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)