Shame and harassment in Egypt

Eltahawy: Shame and harassment in Egypt

When I was 4 and still living in Cairo, a man exposed himself to me as I stood on a balcony at my family’s home, and gestured for me to come down.

At 15, I was groped as I was performing the rites of the Haj pilgrimage at Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims.

Every part of my body was covered except for my face and hands. I’d never been groped before and burst into tears, but I was too ashamed to explain to my family what had happened.

During my 20s, when I had returned to Cairo, I was groped so many times that whenever I passed a group of men I’d place my bag between me and them. Headphones helped block out the disgusting things men — and even boys barely in their teens hissed at me.

Imagine how much sharper that violation stung when I tried to complain to the police only to be shooed away — or when it was their hands which groped me.

So it was no surprise to learn that 98 percent of foreign women visiting Egypt and 83 percent of native Egyptian women who were recently surveyed said that they, too, had been sexually harassed, and they have recounted a catalog of horrors similar to mine.

When the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights reported that 62 percent of Egyptian men admitted to harassing women, I could only shudder at what sexist bullies so many of my countrymen are. That’s when I was taken back full circle to the time I was groped on the Haj.

Shame. This shame is fueled by religious and political messages that bombard Egyptian public life, turning women into sexual objects and giving men free reign to their bodies. There is no law criminalizing sexual harassment in Egypt, and police often refuse to report women’s complaints. The state itself taught Egyptians a most spectacular lesson in institutionalized patriarchy when security forces and government-hired thugs sexually assaulted demonstrators, especially women, during an anti-regime protest in 2005, giving a green light to harassers.

My sister Nora and I have swapped our sexual harassment stories like veterans comparing war wounds, and we unraveled a taboo which shelters the real criminals of sexual harassment and has kept us hiding in shame. And that is why I began here with my own stories — to free myself of the tentacles of that shame.

Mona Eltahawy is a commentator on Arab and Muslim issues and is a syndicated columnist for Agence Global.