Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born feminist writer and journalist who has written for Reuters, The Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has also worked with Arabic-language publications such as Women's eNews and Asharq Al-Awsat. Eltahawy is a vocal women's rights activist and feminist writer. Her work deals primarily with the status of women in the Arab world. In 2011, she was arrested while covering protests in Egypt's Tahrir square. Eltahawy's detention was brought to public attention after she posted a tweet stating that she had been physically and sexually assaulted while she was held captive. She was also arrested in New York in 2012 for spray painting over an offensive signboard. That year, Eltahawy wrote an article titled, ‘Why do they hate us: The real war on women is in the Middle East.’ In the article, she argued that no progress was possible in West Asia without a social and sexual revolution that would uplift the status of women in Arab society. The essay was later expanded into a book, Hymens and Headscarves: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, which was published in 2015.
Last week, Surabhi Kanga, an assistant editor with The Caravan, spoke to Eltahawy at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. Eltahawy discussed her beginnings in feminism, how the relationship with the United States of America is affecting the Arab world, and why the Islamic faith must be questioned for its treatment of women.
Surabhi Kanga: In your book, you talk about being “traumatised into feminism.”
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