Mona Eltahawy Quotes

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Mona Eltahawy

Profession : Journalist

Birth : August 1, 1967

I joke that one of the rare times Egyptians identify as African is when the national soccer squad is playing in the African Cup of Nations - and preferably winning it.

Mona Eltahawy

As an Egyptian, I was glad to see the film 'Black Panther' embrace my country with its inclusion of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Bast as the deity of Wakandans. But considering the anti-black racism against the Nubian indigenous community and visitors in my country, I knew Egypt would not return the love.

Mona Eltahawy

Anti-black racism is not just an Egyptian problem. It exists in many parts of the Arab world.

Mona Eltahawy

Morality crusades unite military regimes and religious zealots alike.

Mona Eltahawy

My feminism does not demand that a woman have an equal opportunity to torture, alongside men. Torture is no less wrong because a woman, not a man, carries it out.

Mona Eltahawy

I do not celebrate the appointment of women to high positions in regimes where cruelty is a favored tool of governance by a patriarchy; if they accept, they are nothing short of foot soldiers of that patriarchy and the violence it has instituted.

Mona Eltahawy

I do not subscribe to a feminism that demands perfection or super heroic nobility of women. But I do insist that putting women at the service of patriarchy is no victory for us.

Mona Eltahawy

Feminism, as I see it, is not about counting women in key jobs.

Mona Eltahawy

Some forms of veil are justified by the idea that you're not tempting men. Well how about men just behaving and keeping their hands to yourselves? How about, instead of criticizing how I dress, respecting me and my right to the public space?

Mona Eltahawy

Women of color have always been kind of boxed in by the idea that the more you talk about the misogyny of your own community, the more you make that community look bad.

Mona Eltahawy

To say that there is patriarchy in Arab culture is not denying women agency.

Mona Eltahawy

I avoid continuously writing or tweeting about ISIS, as it centres them in the narrative and we end up reacting to them and reacting to the agenda they set.

Mona Eltahawy

The first time I wore a head scarf, I was 16. I looked and felt like a nun. I missed the wind in my hair. For me, it was not a comfortable thing to wear.

Mona Eltahawy

We are fighting misogynists in every culture. My solution is to listen to the women in each community and amplify their voices.

Mona Eltahawy

I grew up looking at my parents as equals.

Mona Eltahawy

This ISIS group, they attack Muslims more than they attack anyone else.

Mona Eltahawy

To this day I have no idea what dissident professor or librarian placed feminist texts on the bookshelves at the university library in Jeddah, but I found them there. They filled me with terror. I understood they were pulling at a thread that would unravel everything.

Mona Eltahawy

We left Egypt when I was seven, and we didn't return until I was 21. My teen years were divided between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. Up until we left the U.K., it was like your regular teenage years. The one thing I remember is that I couldn't date. That was one thing my parents made very clear.

Mona Eltahawy

I grew up in the U.K., and my parents are both doctors.

Mona Eltahawy

I started off at a local newspaper called 'The Middle East Times,' which is no longer in existence. I remember one of the earliest stories that I wrote for them was a study about domestic violence in Egypt from a government-run research institute think tank.

Mona Eltahawy