Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
May 6, 2018 9 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
My essay on the importance of profanity is out! (Read the editors note and know that I spell f**k without **) nbcnews.com/think/opinion/… #WhyISayFuck
Isn’t interesting that in response to my essay on the importance of profanity for women, the dogs of patriarchy bark extra loudly
It is instructive that in the era of Trump — a man who has torpedoed the notion of civility — women are still expected to be polite and demure. “She did not cater to the room” was an actual criticism of Michelle Wolf’s performance at #WHCD
That is the power of profanity — and why it is important for women to not shy away from it. Whenever I stand at a podium to give a lecture, I begin with my declaration of faith: “Fuck the patriarchy.”
I say fuck to honor the power of “radical rudeness,” as perfected by Ugandan scholar and feminist Stella Nyanzi.
“What other avenues do we have left to us?" Stella Nyanzi. “We don't have guns or money. But I can still write and think and insult and abuse."
I say fuck to challenge patriarchy’s stranglehold over what is and is not offensive. Remember when a woman lawmaker was banned from addressing her colleagues because she had said “vagina” in a debate over abortion?
What would the world look like if the energy spent policing language, especially female language, was invested instead into policing the very real harm of patriarchal violence? #WhyISayFuck
Let’s teach all our girls to say “fuck,” loudly, proudly, unfiltered and uncensored. #WhyISayFuck

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More from @monaeltahawy

Oct 8, 2018
This is how propaganda for the patriarchy works: it paints women who have been sexually assaulted as the criminals and men who have assaulted as the victims as a strategy to divert sympathy from the former to the latter. For example:
Popaganda for the patriarchy insists that we look at the men who sexually assault as “our brothers, sons, husbands,” rather than seeing the women they assault as “their sisters, daughters, wives” so as to divert sympathy from the latter to the former
Propaganda for the patriarchy succeeds in making people identify with and rally around the patriarchy
Read 8 tweets
Oct 7, 2018
I have barely slept.I have been unable to stop thinking about #JamalKhashoggi. I knew him from when we both were columnists for #Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat b4 I was banned.We met just once, I think. But reports yest of his killing came same day as #Kavanaugh & my worlds collided
Trump has emboldened so many dictators,esp Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman.With so much attention been sucked up by US,the killing of Jamal,who wasn’t an esp outspoken critic,is sure to embolden regimes further & signal to dissidents & opponents that their harm will go unnoticed
To think that you could go to your country’s consulate to get paperwork for an upcoming wedding and be killed and dismembered because of your writing is horrific. It’s evil. And to know that the regime responsible for that has a best friend in the most powerful country in earth!
Read 22 tweets
Oct 6, 2018
Whatever happens today:
- Trump did not invent white supremacy or patriarchy.
- White supremacy and patriarchy will not end if Kavanaugh is not confirmed.
- Defy, disobey and disrupt white supremacy and patriarchy at every turn
- Make them fear you
#MakePatriarchyFearYou
My message is to white Americans who will spend today saying:
- “This isn’t the America I know” - it is and has been for a very long time and you should be asking why you just now paid attention. Where have you been?
To white American women who’ll spend today saying:
-“Roe v Wade! No more rapists in power!”
Rapists have been in power for centuries.Ask indigenous & Black women.Anti-choice legislation in several states already made abortion nearly impossible for many women of colour,poor women
Read 9 tweets
Oct 5, 2018
For too long rape and sexual violence during war was considered a byproduct of conflict. It is more and more finally being seen as weapon of war, not byproduct.
In 2016, my friend & journalist @AhNidzara took me to Vilna Vlas, a hotel & spa in Višegrad which was used as a rape concentration camp in 1992 during Bosnian war. Women & girls were raped individually & en masses in empty swimming pool. It is still being used as a hotel and spa.
In 2017, I went with France-based anti-racist activists from @EGAMofficial to Rwanda to take part in the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsis. Rape was used as a weapon of war systematically against women who were also mitigated, and many killed.
Read 10 tweets
Oct 4, 2018
“Women for Trump” aka Footsoldiers of the Patriarchy
These “Women for Trump”:
- Who indoctrinated them?
- Who taught them to submit to men?
- Why are they so brainwashed?
- Should I save them?
For decades, I’ve been asked by white people:
- What is wrong with Muslim women?
- Why do they put up with all that patriarchy and misogyny?
And here I am asking the same about these “Women for Trump” who are the 53% of white American women voters who voted for him.
Read 16 tweets
Oct 2, 2018
Once again: white women never missing a chance to be footsoldiers of patriarchy:
Believe Blasey Ford: 46%
Believe Kavanaugh: 43%
- Quinnipiac University poll
h/t @Jteisele
Believe Blasey Ford:
Black people polled: 83%
Hispanic people polled: 66%
White people polled: 40%
The rot of white patriarchy:
White men
Believe Blasey Ford: 33%
Believe Kavanaugh: 57%
Read 15 tweets

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