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" As an Egyptian-American, I want both sides of that hyphen to enjoy the forms of freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, as I want both sides of that hyphen to move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question, 'Why do they hate us?' "

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" I detest the niqab and the burka for their erasure of women and for dangerously equating piety with that disappearance - the less of you I can see, the closer you must be to God. "

Mona Eltahawy

God

Less

You

" I wore the hijab - a form of dress that comprises a head scarf and usually also clothing that covers the whole body except for the face and hands - for nine years. Put more honestly, I wore the hijab for nine years and spent eight of them trying to take it off. "

" For years I looked at the Iranians with envy - not at the outcome of their 1979 revolution, but because it was a popular uprising, not a euphemism for a coup. "

" That morning of 11 September 2001, as we watched the twin towers crumble on live television, America and I would develop a bond that has proven deeper and more enduring - for better or worse, through sickness and health - than the one I had with my now ex-husband. "

" To me, Egypt is a wonderful history, a wonderful people, and it's represented through artists like Om Kalthoum, who is considered the fourth pyramid of Egypt. She's a wonderful diva whose voice, for me, is really Egyptian. "

" I am appalled to hear the defence of the niqab or burka in Europe. A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women's rights but who are now instead sacrificing those very rights in the name of fighting an increasingly powerful right wing. "

" For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict. "

" A source of embarrassment for Libyans, Gadhafi has never been a joke: disappearances, a police state, zero freedom of expression, and poverty for at least a third of the population of country tremendously wealthy thanks to oil. "

" This ISIS group, they attack Muslims more than they attack anyone else. "

Mona Eltahawy

Group

Else

" My birth at the end of July 1967 makes me a child of the naksa, or setback, as the Arab defeat during the June 1967 war with Israel is euphemistically known in Arabic. "

Mona Eltahawy

Child

Birth

" We have been under military rule since 1952, when a group of army officers overthrew Egypt's monarchy and ended Britain's occupation of the country. But that only replaced an external occupation with an internal one, in which favored sons of the armed forces replaced their uniforms with suits, a move meant to create a semblance of civilian rule. "

" I can write about my culture and religion because I am a product of both. Even when I'm accused of giving ammunition to the Islamophobic right, in the struggle between 'community' and 'women,' I always choose the women. "

" The Bush administration and its 'we'll liberate you by invading your countries' doctrine is thankfully behind us. It is up to us to fight for our rights inside our communities. "

Mona Eltahawy

Inside

You

" I visited Libya in September 1996 for the 27th anniversary of the 'revolution' - a military coup that a 27-year-old Gadhafi led to topple the monarchy and since which he has ruled. Some were optimistic that Gadhafi's 'revolution' could herald a new Libya, but it didn't take long for his brutality to stamp out any such hopes. "

" To this day I have no idea what dissident professor or librarian placed feminist texts on the bookshelves at the university library in Jeddah, but I found them there. They filled me with terror. I understood they were pulling at a thread that would unravel everything. "

" In 1993, I joined Reuters as a correspondent in its Cairo bureau. "

" I have chosen not to have children. "

Mona Eltahawy

Chosen

Children

" I started off at a local newspaper called 'The Middle East Times,' which is no longer in existence. I remember one of the earliest stories that I wrote for them was a study about domestic violence in Egypt from a government-run research institute think tank. "

" The Tunisian revolution left every Arab dictator in fear; Egypt's toppling of Mubarak left them terrified - even one of the U.S.' best allies in the region could fall. "

" To write about the hijab is to step into a minefield. Even among those who share my cultural and faith background, opinions veer from those who despise it as a symbol of backwardness to those for whom religion begins and ends with that piece of cloth. "

" Good riddance, Bin Laden - an unwelcome squatter in the house of my religion who tore down all the walls and was prepared to throw them on a fire to keep himself warm. "

" My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult - all those hormones and everything - but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia... it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this. "

" Banning hate speech doesn't end racism or antisemitism. Social pressure does that. It becomes socially unacceptable. "

" To say that there is patriarchy in Arab culture is not denying women agency. "

" I abhor the rightwing Muslim ideology behind the veils, but I equally abhor the political rightwing xenophobes of Europe. "

" We must make sure #MeToo breaks the race, class, gender, and faith lines that make it so hard for marginalized people to be heard. "

" My feminism does not demand that a woman have an equal opportunity to torture, alongside men. Torture is no less wrong because a woman, not a man, carries it out. "

" When the only two sides fighting are conservative - even if one of them is just conservative in appearance - then everyone loses. And women don't just lose; they're also used as cheap ammunition. "

" As a U.S. citizen, I cherish the First Amendment. "

" I grew up looking at my parents as equals. "

Mona Eltahawy

Equals

Grew