Thursday, December 22, 2011

MMW: What Women Wear: Women’s Clothing, Media, and Egypt’s Revolutionary Elections


Women in the Egyptian revolution have been a great source of international attention and appreciation. It is when women participate that you truly can call it a “people’s” revolution.

When the news started to come out about the elections for the Revolutionary Parliament, everyone looked closely for women’s participation; women candidates, women voters, women section in each party program, and women finally winning seats in the parliament. With the general fear from the dominance of the so-called Islamic parties affecting women rights in Egypt in general, and political participation specifically, and with the minimal success of women in the first stage, worries started to get bigger.

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WE WILL NEVER FORGET!




Knock on all doors
leave no relative, friend, colleague, or a neighbor
Let them watch this even if you had to do it by force

If you can’t go to Tahrir,
If you have to go to work,
If you don’t want to make your family worries,
If you’re so confused,
If you don’t want to be in the middle,

watch… and make everybody watch!

That is your role, your duty, and your responsibility!


Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Tahrir Women Wall of Fame!



Samira Ibrahim


This is the upper-Egypt girl, coming from Sohag, who has participated in the revolution since day 1. During the violent military attack on March 9th, Samira, together with 16 girls, were subjected to an illegal “Virginity Test” forced into them by army soldiers after being tortured and beaten up!
Samira is not shutting up, and she is raising charges against the army, even if it takes her life to get her right!

Ghada Kamal


A pharmaceutical from Mansoura, member of April 6th movement, and member of Supporting Al Baradie group.
She was attacked by the army soldiers on December 16th morning, her veil was taken off, and the letter “T” was carved into her skull.
She gave her full testimony about her horrible experience of being detained by any army sergeant who kept threatening of sexually abusing her!

It’s worth mentioning here that there was some confusion regarding Ghada being the girl who was stripped off. But that is not the case, yes, there are so many cases not just one!

Farida Elhessy


A medical graduate who works as a photographer and who went to Kasr El Einy street Friday, December 16th morning to reply to a call for doctors to help casualties.
Farida was beaten up by the army, kicked on the back, and pulled from her hair.

The Old Woman



According to Mona Seif, this woman was not part of the protest, but she joined just to save a girl from being beaten up by the army, only to be beaten up herself and slapped till she apologized!


Tahrir Lady:


She is the woman every piece of **** thought he could talk about her.
She is the woman who was wearing face-veil “Nekab” when she was dragged on the street, kicked on the chest, pulled from the head, and finally stripped off till her underwear was revealed to suddenly realize she was a woman, then they left her for the other protestors to help her.
Right now, according to her friend on Twitter, she is suffering several bone fractures, skull fracture, bruises all over her body, and of course, she suffers psychologically and emotionally not only from the army violence but from how easy it was for everyone to varnish her reputation and question her morals and honor.

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      As an Egyptian woman, I cannot help but being so proud of these women.
Not just cause they faced all this horrible violence fearlessly, but because they amazingly made everyone look into one of our major societal problems, that I personally believe the core of so many disturbances we suffer here.

Violence against women!

In a society that thinks violence against women OK, army soldiers cannot be different. To them, violence is a language , a method of communication, and a tool by which they enforce and assure power.

I can beat you up, hence I can control you!

Men to women, fathers to daughters, police officers to citizens, and finally army soldiers to protestors.
Some think that focusing on what happened to women is a narrow-minded look into the events, cause all Egyptians have been subjected to all sorts of violence and abuse from authorities, not only this year, but for decades.
I say yes, that is – unfortunately – true. But it is when you highlight the fact that women – perceived as the weaker gender – and children for that matter, should not be under violence from someone who is stronger, that the whole concept of violence will be looked at differently.

I remember my fiancé when we were discussing kids playing sports like Karate and Taekwondo, he told me that it is when you know you can actually kill someone that you learn how to control it, and not to brag about it.
You already know you can do it, you have nothing to prove!
Hence it starts to become shameful to attack someone who is weaker than you. It would not be a fair game.

I think we need to dig deeper into this culture of  “what is power”  in order to finally reach a day when no one beats up another human just because he can!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Waiting for you Tomorrow


Tomorrow, Tuesday December the 20th, a women march will take place starting at 3PM in front of “AlMogammaa’” and reaching press syndicate at 4.30 PM
Waiting for you!

Egyptian Woman Day

I think December 16th should be the "Egyptian Woman Day" instead of March 16th from now on. What do you think?

Tahrir Blue Bra


The Egyptian Army has been violently attacking, beating, murdering peaceful protesters. One iconic image that will remain from the December massacres is that of an anonymous unconscious woman, who had been dragged, viciously beaten, and semi-stripped by the valiant uniformed soldiers, her blue bra contrasting with her pale skin and her ripped shirt beneath her, as a soldier's foot lands on her stomach. This is her: 




The bra is in solidarity with this woman, with every woman who's been harassed or beaten, and with every protester in Egypt. Thank you for supporting Egypt's unarmed freedom seekers!
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