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" Authenticity has never been Barbie's strong suit. "
Mona Eltahawy
Strong
Authenticity
Barbie
Related Quotes:
" As Muslim women, we're not waiting for the president of the United States to open doors for us or to fight our fights. "
Mona Eltahawy
Waiting
Open
Us
" The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. "
Mona Eltahawy
Party
Brotherhood
Republican
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Women
Powerful
Political
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Army
Suits
Group
" I know Obama knows better than George W. Bush. "
Mona Eltahawy
Obama
Than
Knows
" I joke that one of the rare times Egyptians identify as African is when the national soccer squad is playing in the African Cup of Nations - and preferably winning it. "
Mona Eltahawy
Playing
Winning
Soccer
" I grew up in the U.K., and my parents are both doctors. "
Mona Eltahawy
Grew
Doctors
Both
" I like to call the Republicans the Christian Brotherhood of the U.S. so that my fellow Americans recognise the line that connects their mix of religion and politics with their Muslim equivalent in Egypt. "
Mona Eltahawy
Religion
Brotherhood
Egypt
" President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, like his most recent predecessors Mohamed Morsi and Hosni Mubarak, rarely mention the Sinai Peninsula other than to celebrate its liberation from Israeli occupation in 1982. "
Mona Eltahawy
Other
President
Like
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Dress
Trying
Head
" I was never one for dolls. "
Mona Eltahawy
Dolls
Never
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Step
Opinions
Religion
" All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women's sexuality. "
Mona Eltahawy
Women
Religions
Sexuality
" What is satire if not a marriage of civil disobedience to a laugh track, a potent brew of derision and lack of respect that acts as a nettle sting on the thin skin of the humourless? "
Mona Eltahawy
Satire
Skin
Respect
" Saudi Arabia isn't just a conservative country with different values we shouldn't judge. It is a modern Gilead. "
Mona Eltahawy
Country
Judge
Values
" I was 15 when my family moved to Jidda from Britain in 1982. Living in Saudi Arabia was such a shock to my system that I like to say I was traumatized into feminism. "
Mona Eltahawy
Living
System
Family
" Muslim views are not a monolithic blob. "
Mona Eltahawy
Views
Muslim
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Family
Women
Why
" We must make sure #MeToo breaks the race, class, gender, and faith lines that make it so hard for marginalized people to be heard. "
Mona Eltahawy
Class
Gender
Hard
" 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
Us
You
" In the U.K., my mother had been the breadwinner. I'd seen my parents side by side. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was basically rendered disabled. She was unable to drive, dependent on my dad for everything. The religious zealotry was so suffocating. "
Mona Eltahawy
Mother
She
Drive
" Some forms of veil are justified by the idea that you're not tempting men. Well how about men just behaving and keeping their hands to yourselves? How about, instead of criticizing how I dress, respecting me and my right to the public space? "
Mona Eltahawy
You
Space
Dress
" I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia. "
Mona Eltahawy
Saudi
Family
Age
" Mubarak was adept, as were many other U.S.-backed dictators, at playing the sane middle to the 'lunatics with beards' he so often used as bogeymen to guarantee the support of foreign allies. "
Mona Eltahawy
Middle
Used
Support
" When we complain to Egypt's Western allies about whichever autocrat is in power, we are asked, 'But who is the alternative?' It is a question designed to frustrate. "
Mona Eltahawy
Complain
Question
Power
" I will never ally with Islamophobes and racists. But in the choice between 'community' and Muslim women, I will always choose my sisters. "
Mona Eltahawy
Women
Community
Choose
" My parents' generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s. "
Mona Eltahawy
Parents
Nationalism
High
" As a U.S. citizen, I cherish the First Amendment. "
Mona Eltahawy
First Amendment
First
Citizen
" 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. "
Mona Eltahawy
Fall
Revolution
Fear
" We are fighting misogynists in every culture. My solution is to listen to the women in each community and amplify their voices. "
Mona Eltahawy
Women
Fighting
Culture