12/20/11 update, from the New York Times:
“Thousands of woman marched through downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening to call for the end of military rule in an extraordinary expression of anger over images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking a female demonstrator on the pavement of Tahrir Square….
The event may have been the biggest women’s demonstration in Egypt’s history, and the most significant since a 1919 march led by pioneering Egyptian feminist Huda Shaarawi to protest British rule. The scale was stunning, and utterly unexpected in this strictly patriarchal society. Previous attempts to organize women’s events in Tahrir Square this year have either fizzled or, in at least one case, ended in the physical harassment of the handful of women who did turn out.”
Marvelous.
Visit the website HarassMap or follow the hashtag #EndSH on Twitter and you’ll find documentation of street harassment and sexual assault in Cairo, including Tahrir Square.
Journalist Mona Eltahawy is outspoken about this atrocity, and last month she brought attention to the sexual assault she and other female journalists experienced while covering protests at Tahrir Square.
Today on CNN, Eltahawy spoke about the brutality of the Egyptian military against protesters. She brought attention to the treatment of women in particular (especially the woman dubbed “Blue Bra Girl“):
“…I hope she survived…I hope she is able to recover… I cannot even begin to imagine what she went through…what this woman went through is incredible on so many levels. I salute her first of all for her courage in being there. And second of all, I think what she does, and especially this picture you are seeing right now, is it exposes once and for all and kills any denial about the Egyptian regime whether it was under Mubarak and now under the military and the use of systematic sexual violence against women in Egypt. It is a shame, it has been denied for too long and we must expose it at every level. And unfortunately, her tragic case has allowed us to do that very publicly…”
As many others have said before, there can be no true revolution until the sexual harassment and violence against women ends.
Update: Eltahawy just spoke to the BBC, too.
