Dear reader,
Feminist writer Mona Eltahawy has made international waves for her criticism of everything from religious veiling of women to misogyny in Arab societies.
The Egyptian-American expanded on her views of Islam and women in the 2015 book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. In honor of the book’s Spanish debut, Eltahawy sat down with HuffPost Spain’s Marina Velasco to discuss the evolution of her thoughts on veiling and violence and how the topics remain relevant today.
“The interview ... put in the spotlight the reality of Muslim women who decide not to wear the veil. In Spain there is a great lack of awareness about it,” Marina said, noting that many Muslim women in Spain do wear a veil.
“Thanks to Mona Eltahawy, people can delve into the different reasons why Muslim women take this decision [not to]: piety, freedom, imposition, racism,” Marina said. “It seems that in Spain we’re starting to raise this ‘veil’ of unawareness, but there’s still the belief that wearing a veil is a way to show solidarity with a community, as it happened after the New Zealand attacks.”
Eltahawy criticized this gesture, noting that a religious headscarf is “not a toy” and that the attempt to show solidarity excluded all the Muslim women, like her, who reject the veil. She suggested non-Muslim New Zealanders fight signs of xenophobia and white supremacy within their own families if they really want to support the Muslim community in the wake of the deadly mosque attack — and leave any discussion over the veil to Muslims.
“I know it bothers a lot of people, because they say that, since it is a women’s issue, it affects them too,” Eltahawy said. But she urged non-Muslim feminist allies to stay away from debates around veiling and to focus on fighting the patriarchy within their own communities.
In Spain, for example, she suggested they focus on fighting violence against women and sexual assault. (Marina points out that sexual assault reports in Spain jumped 23 percent between 2017 and 2018, due in part to greater awareness about the issue.)
Eltahawy is also critical of Western governments that attempt to ban various garments used for religious veiling. While she once expressed support for bans on the niqab, she has a new position: “Unless you’re a Muslim woman, shut the fuck up and listen to Muslim women.”
Until next time,
Emily
Mona Eltahawy’s latest book debuts in September. You can pre-order The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls here.
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