18

20.03.15

INTERVIEW
MONA ELTAHAWY

www.thebookseller.com

20.03.15

www.thebookseller.com

INTERVIEW
MONA ELTAHAWY

19

METADATA

Mona Eltahawy
In a remarkable, rollicking roar-to-arms, a writer who was at the heart of the Arab
Spring proposes that the region needs a sexual revolution. Caroline Sanderson reports

I couldnt speak about it for years. It traumatised

me. People just didnt believe it, says journalist
and campaigner Mona Eltahawy. We are talking
about the section of her book where she describes being
groped as a teenager, not once, but twice, as she prayed
while circling the KaabaIslams most sacred siteon hajj
in Mecca. It is one of many disclosures in Headscarves and
Hymens: Why the Arab World Needs a Sexual Revolution which
left me needing to stop reading for a moment: incredulous,
nauseous, teary and/or flinty with anger.
This being a phone interview, down the line to Cairo,
I regrettably cannot see the magnificent tattoo on the
inside of Eltahawys right forearm (pictured right). It depicts
Sekhmet, the lion-headed Ancient Egyptian goddess of sex
and retribution. Getting the tattoo doneand dying her dark
brown mane redwas how Eltahawy celebrated her survival
after she was beaten up and sexually assaulted by riot police
in November 2011, as she took part in a demonstration
during the Egyptian Revolution. The riot police knew exactly
how to hurt a feminist who had written extensively about
the brutal violence which had replaced the initially joyful,
popular uprising. She was left with a broken left arm and a
broken right hand, injuries that rendered her unable to write
for three monthsexcept for typing with one finger.
Though battered and traumatised, the defiant Eltahawy
continued to tweet ferociously. One of her tweets read: The
whole time I was thinking about article [sic] I would write;
just you fuckers wait. True to her words, the attack provided
the main catalyst for a remarkable essay, written as soon as
she had healed and published in US magazine Foreign Policy
in April 2012. Why Do They Hate Us? is a searing account
of the misogyny prevalent in the Middle East, which cites a
litany of abuses, fuelled by a toxic mix of culture and religion
that few seem willing to untangle lest they blaspheme or
offend. It went viral, stirring up seriously polarised views.
Eltahawy has now responded to the controversy by
writing Headscarves and Hymens, a roar-to-arms that sets her
own experiencesincluding that jaw-dropping incident in

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Mecca, about which she kept silent for years so that Muslims
would not look badalongside those of dozens of other
women. The result is a catalogue of the lunatic, misogynistic
and sometimes downright barbaric attitudes towards
women in the Arab world: from the Hobsons Choice of the
veil and the Saudi cleric who declared that women shouldnt
drive because it damages their ovaries; to the sickening
prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (30 million girls
are at risk in the next decade); and Rawan, the eight-yearold Yemeni bride who died of internal bleeding after being
violently penetrated on her wedding night.
ANOTHER COUNTRY
The roots of Eltahawys feminism run deep. The daughter
of middle-class parents, she spent part of her childhood in
the UK while her parents were studying for medical PhDs.
We moved there both for my mum and my dad who met
as equals in medical school, but people seemed surprised
that it wasnt just my dads job that had brought us to the
UK. Even at that young age, I picked up the fact that not
much was expected of Muslim women. When Eltahawy was
15, the family moved to Saudi Arabia. It wasnt just culture
shock. It was as if we had gone to another planet. My mother
was now completely dependent on my father. On moving
back to Egypt aged 21, Eltahawy was profoundly influenced
by her encounters with the work of fantastic feminist role
models such as Huda Shaarawiwho launched Egypts
womens rights movement and publicly removed her face
veil in 1923and novelist and activist Nawal El-Saadawi.
After spending some years in the US, as well as travelling
the world giving talks and commentating on Arab and
Muslim issues (she is an electrifying speaker), Eltahawy
returned to live in Cairo while writing her book. The main
reason I was assaulted was to terrorise me. I wanted to show
that I had not been terrorised. But I was still struggling with
the trauma of the assault. You tell me that you kept having to
stop reading the book, well I kept having to stop writing it. I
was writing about things that enrage me: it took everything

Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Publication 21.05.15
Formats HB/EB
ISBN 9780297609001/025
Rights sold in the US
(Farrar, Strauss, Giroux), the
Netherlands, France, Norway,
Denmark, Hungary, Germany,
Poland, Italy and Canada
Editor Arzu Tahsin, W&N
Agent Jessica Papin at Dystel
& Goderich, New York

EXTRACT

For any Egyptian

or Muslim woman
to write about sex
and the need for
sexual pleasure
is enormously
difficult and taboo

1967

1975-

1982-

1989-

2014

Born in Port Said,

Egypt

1982

Lives in UK, where her

parents study for PhDs
in medicine

1988

Lives in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia

present

Freelance journalist/
commentator for the
Guardian, New York
Times, CNN, the BBC,
Al Jazeera

Makes The Women of

the Arab Spring, BBC
World Service radio
documentary

out of me. I was oscillating between human rights violations

on a huge scale and things that were extremely personal. It
was emotionally very difficult.
It is this oscillation between the personal and the political
that makes Headscarves and Hymens so compelling and
readable. The most subversive thing a woman can do is talk
about her life as if it really matters, writes Eltahawy. And she
does. But it is far from self-indulgence, because in order to do
so, Eltahawy has to endure something more painful than the
tattooing of the sensitive flesh of her forearms. In effect, she
must undergo her own sexual revolution in order to reveal
that she guarded her hymen like a good virgin until she was
29 and to confess to her profound sadness that she did so for
so long. For any Egyptian or Muslim woman to write about
sex and the need for sexual pleasure is enormously difficult
and taboo. Im more comfortable talking about Hosni
Mubarak or Osama bin Laden. But the concept of modesty
constantly affects women. It isnt just a Muslim thing: look at
the growing purity culture in the US. Our bodies are these
proxy battlefields. I say: be immodest!
A GRADUAL PROCESS
Eltahawy, hot-blooded as she is, acknowledges that like any
reformation, sexual revolution in the Middle East will not
happen in a few short months. Egypt is like a house where
the windows and doors have been closed for 60 years. The
revolution opened a window, and this wretched smell came
out. So our first reaction was to close the window again. But
what we must do is open all the windows. And then we must
open all the doors.

I discuss Eltahawys book with Sarah Shaffi, my colleague

at The Bookseller. As a Muslim woman brought up in Britain, I
have choice and freedom unavailable to many of the women
in Headscarves and Hymens, Shaffi reflects. Eltahawy and
those she has spoken to are some of the bravest women
Ive ever heard of. So what can those of us with choice
and freedom do to help, I ask Eltahawy. I get this question
a lot. And I always reply: start by helping the community
where you live. This isnt just a battle taking place in the
Middle East. In parts of the US, the religious right-wing
has rolled womens reproductive rights back 20 years. We
must help women everywhere. If we labour under the false
impression that the fight has been won, we will become
too comfortable, and thats when complacency sets in. At
this point, it is worth reflecting on the fact that FGM has
been illegal in the UK since 1985. Despite that, an estimated
137,000 women and girls in England and Wales have been
affected by it (according to a study released last summer)
and there has yet to be a single conviction.
In 2012, Newsweek named Eltahawy one of its 150 Fearless
Women. Is she truly without fear? The idea of being fearless
doesnt occur to me: its just what I have to do. Here in Egypt,
Im surrounded by incredibly courageous people: so many
of us are walking around still traumatised by the revolution.
I have no idea what the reaction to the book will be. But I
am tenaciously optimistic. I truly believe that we have begun
something irreversible. And because I have the privilege of
being able to write and not suffer the consequences that
many other women would, it makes me want to push 10
times harder.

Some may ask why Im

bringing this up now,
when the Middle East
and North Africa are in
turmoil, when people
are losing their lives by
the thousands, when it
can sometimes seem as
though the revolutions
begun in 2010incited
not by the usual hatred
of America and Israel, but
by a common demand
for freedom and dignity
have lost their way. After
all, shouldnt everyone
receive basic rights first,
before women demand
special treatment? Also,
what does gender or, for
that matter, sex have to
do with the Arab Spring?
It should have everything
to do with revolution. This
is our chance to dismantle
an entire political and
economic system that
treats half of humanity
like children at best. If not
now, when?