Tag Archive for "egypt"

Posts Tagged egypt

Rape culture attempts to silence Egyptian women

**Trigger warning**

In a recent survey from UN Women, 99.3 percent of all Egyptian women report being sexually harassed, and 91.5 percent have experienced unwelcome physical contact.

However, nestled within this spike of rampant sexual assault and rape of Egyptian women, justice for the victims and pressure for societal changes to address its own rape culture are lost and exploited for political gain. Egyptian society, not unlike many places in the West (or the world for that matter) blames victims for their assault. It is (as we are well aware) the victim blaming that silences. While Egypt law carries stiff punishment for rape an sexual assault, women are discouraged from reporting them, and men continue to commit these acts of violence ...

**Trigger warning**

In a recent survey from UN Women, 99.3 percent of all Egyptian women report being sexually harassed, and 91.5 percent have experienced unwelcome physical contact.

However, nestled within this spike of rampant sexual assault and rape ...

By Jos Truitt • 11 years ago

12 year old boy Ali Ahmed on the Muslim Brotherhood’s fascist theocracy and feminism

My faith in large parts of humanity has been shaken this week. This kid is giving me some hope for the future, though. Watch how Ali Ahmed explains to news outlet El Wady what a fascist theocracy is and then preaches the importance of feminism to a new Egypt. I love when the interviewer asks, “Who taught you all this?” and the Ahmed’s all, “I just know it. I listen to people a lot, and I use my own brain.” And of course he’s read the Constitution.

Kids today.

My faith in large parts of humanity has been shaken this week. This kid is giving me some hope for the future, though. Watch how Ali Ahmed explains to news outlet El Wady what a ...

By Alexandra Brodsky • 11 years ago

Weekly Feminist Reader

Egyptian cartoonist Doaa Eladl publishes a controversial cartoon criticizing FGC.

The North Dakota Senate has approved a ban on abortions after six-weeks of pregnancy, the most restrictive in the country.

Both cops involved in Kimani Gray’s murder had already been named in federal lawsuits.

The Middle East’s first women’s museum has opened in Dubai.

Domestic violence is four times as prevalent in police offer families as in the general population.

Ugandan girl chess genius Phiona Mutesi invited to play against Bill Gates (who is arrogant enough to think he stands a chance).

How has social media changed the way we talk about rape?

Senator Feinstein won’t stand for mansplaining.

Egyptian cartoonist Doaa Eladl publishes a controversial cartoon criticizing FGC.

The North Dakota Senate has approved a ban on abortions after six-weeks of pregnancy, the most restrictive in the country.

Both cops ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Student journalist describes being sexually assaulted by mob in Egypt

*Trigger warning*

Another horrifying sexual assault against a woman journalist in Egypt is spotlighting the epidemic of harassment in the country–as well as the risks lady reporters regularly face across the globe. The attack against Natasha Smith, a British student journalist working on a documentary about women’s rights, during the post-election celebrations this past weekend closely echoes the attacks on Lara Logan and Mona Eltahawy last year.

She described the whole experience on her blog:

But in a split second, everything changed. Men had been groping me for a while, but suddenly, something shifted. I found myself being dragged from my male friend, groped all over, with increasing force and aggression. I screamed. I could see what was happening ...

*Trigger warning*

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Join Egyptian women in speaking out against street harassment today

As I’ve mentioned, last Friday a group of Egyptian women gathered in Tahir Square to protest sexual harassment were attacked by a group of men and–you guessed it–sexually assaulted.

Sexual assault of female protesters has marred Egypt’s revolution from the get-go. And your every-day, garden-variety street harassment is a regular occurrence. A 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights found that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women had experienced harassment. And not one Egyptian presidential candidate has spoken out about this problem.

But women in Egypt, the Middle East, and the world are fighting back. In Egypt, a website called HarassMap provides a place to report incidents and warn others of ...

As I’ve mentioned, last Friday a group of Egyptian women gathered in Tahir Square to protest sexual harassment were attacked by a group of men and–you guessed it–sexually assaulted.

Sexual assault of female protesters has ...

By Katie Halper • 12 years ago

Military court clears military doctor of forced virginity tests

In a report issued on Friday, Amnesty International’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director, spoke about the “unacceptable episode” in which Egyptian women were arrested for attending a demonstration at Tahrir Square, and forced to undergo “virginity tests*,” which “is nothing less than torture.” Since that day, Sahraoui said, “women protesters have repeatedly faced beatings, torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of Egypt’s army and security forces… The ‘virginity tests’ trial is a rare opportunity for Egypt’s military to signal that torture by the army does not go unpunished and that perpetrators of human rights violations among its ranks will be held to account.”

The verdict handed down Sunday means that torture will go unpunished and ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Guest post: Notes from a nude photo revolutionary

This is a guest post from Saskia Vogel. Vogel has worked as an art model, an editor for an adult entertainment news magazine, a reporter on all things fruit and vegetables, and all the other gigs one takes while writing. She is now the publicist for Granta magazine and is working on a memoir exploring sex and society. She blogs at saskiavogel.com.

Last November Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, an Egyptian blogger, posted a nude photo of herself on her blog, as Islamists were securing power in Egypt. She tweeted the photo with the tag #NudePhotoRevolutionary. Elmahdy and her boyfriend were subsequently criminally charged with “violating morals, inciting indecency and insulting Islam.”

On 8 March 2012, I joined thirteen other women to stand in solidarity with Elmahdy as part of ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Thousands of Egyptian women march to protest military brutality

[Video via]

Yesterday, several thousand women marched through Cairo in what historians described as the biggest women’s demonstration in modern Egyptian history.

From the AP:

Around 10,000 women marched through central Cairo demanding Egypt’s ruling military step down Tuesday in an unprecedented show of outrage over soldiers who dragged women by the hair and stomped on them, and stripped one half-naked in the street during a fierce crackdown on activists the past week.

The dramatic protest, which grew as the women marched from Tahrir Square through downtown, was fueled by the widely circulated images of abuses of women. Many of the marchers touted the photo of the young woman whose clothes were partially pulled off by troops, baring her down ...

[Video via]

Yesterday, several thousand women marched through Cairo in what historians described as the biggest women’s demonstration in modern Egyptian history.

From the AP:

Around 10,000 women marched through central Cairo demanding Egypt’s ruling military ...