An Egyptian Woman's Story

An Egyptian woman speaks out:

I’m walking down the streets and a man is staring at me, I can see lust in his eyes and in the way he mumbles "eh ya bet el 7alawa de", It’s repulsing, I look at him in disgust and walk faster wondering if he’s checking me out from behind, I pull my shirt downwards as far as it can go and I think about what I’m wearing, Is my jeans too tight? Is my shirt too short? I blame myself although I’m not sure why. It’s our nature maybe or the way we were raised, the way society raised us. I go home ashamed of myself. The next day I’m walking down the street, wearing loose baggy pants and my brother’s training shirt, it’s almost reaching my knees, my hair is pulled up in a ponytail, I have no makeup on. But apparently I seem to have seduced that man who checks me out and says "eh ya moza malek mekashara leh?" I want to slap him! Or at least tell him how he’s such an animal! But of course all I do is walk as fast as I can, clutching my bag tightly over my chest.

This time I don’t blame my clothes, so what is it I wonder? Is it my face? Is it because to him I’m some kind of beautiful? Yeah I settle with that and blame my face this time. I continue walking, my face to the floor trying not to look at people’s faces, trying to ignore the disgusting comments thrown at me. I cross the street and I’m standing on the white lines in the middle, cars are passing me by quickly when suddenly a car full of young men slows a bit and one of them thrusts his hand out of the window and touch my breasts, I retreat as quickly as I can taken by surprise, I hear a car horn from behind me and someone is cursing me for I backed out so suddenly and he was going to hit me, I retreat and quickly cross the street, still trying to swallow what has just happened, I feel the tears falling down my face, I feel so ashamed of myself, I return home quickly, lock myself in the bathroom before anyone can see me, hot tears still running down my face, I’m crying silently but the pain is excruciating, I vomit, then take a shower, scrubbing my body as hard as I can, scrubbing the shame and disgrace away.

I feel hatred for that man whom I didn’t even see his face, but his laugh is ringing loudly in my ears. I go to bed and try to sleep but can’t, thoughts keep running inside my head, is this my fault? Am I to blame? Yes? Why? Is it my clothes? And if I’m completely covered up, is it my face? Is it my feminine body? Society has taught me that it is always my fault. No matter how covered up a woman is, something is always wrong with her somehow. The blame is always on her, never on the man because we live in a masculine society that worships men and despises women.

According to a show I watched before, it’s like women are practically walking down the streets asking for sexual harassment, while on the other hand they feel sympathy for men and how life is hard on them nowadays, where most of them have no jobs and those who have are very ill paid and so they cannot afford to get married or at least not early in their lives, and because in our culture it is not possible for them to have sex until after marriage, so they are burdened by that and they take it out on women! So in short I deserve sexual harassment, not because of my clothes or how I’m dressed, no, it’s just because I’m a woman walking in the streets and some man wants to have sex? What kind of fucked up (messed up for politeness) thinking is that?!