Egyptian-American pundit Mona Eltahawy and I share the same coordinates—liberal and secular—on the ideological map of the Middle East. We also share numerous friends among Arab and Iranian journalists. When I first began publishing pieces about the region, Eltahawy kindly shared my writing with her legions of followers on Facebook and Twitter, garnering me hundreds of new readers with every click of her mouse. We’ve had a few meals together, and those encounters have been nothing but friendly.

 

More recently, Eltahawy and I have parted ways. This process has mostly played itself out on Twitter, with the two of us trading barbs over the latest #MENA, #Egypt, and #Israel controversies. Eltahawy’s vociferous championing of Khader Adnan, a spokesman for the vicious Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad who went on hunger strike last February while detained by Israeli authorities, outraged me. Our breach is typical of a broader polarization among Mideast liberals in the aftermath of a chilly and disappointing Arab Spring. My own disillusionment with these movements has been painful: Above all, I’ve been dismayed by young people in newly liberated North Africa reveling in anti-Western and anti-Israel rhetoric rather than rolling up their sleeves to build genuinely liberal states.

 

Such expressions could be dismissed as the birth pangs of democracy, but that’s no excuse for Western-educated Arab writers to fan the demagogic flames emanating from the region. Unfortunately, many Arab intellectuals have spent the past year advancing an Arab liberalism that betrays fundamental liberal principles. And Eltahawy’s writing has cast doubt on the moral vigor of her liberalism: Last August, she compared riots in Britain over the accidental shooting death of a suspected criminal by London police with the Arab Spring; she also scolded her fellow New Yorkers for celebrating the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Read more at Tablet Magazine

This month's edition of Foreign Policy Magazine is looking at Sex and Gender in today's world.  One article examines women in Arab countries, and this one rebuts that interpretation.  Both are worth reading.

When I marched to Tahrir Square on Jan. 25, 2011, I was driven by the indignities and suffering endured by all Egyptians, men and women, from decades of corrupt and oppressive rule. Despite the oppression, I believed in my power to effect change. I believed then and I believe now that to bring about that change, we need lots of determination and hard work.

 

Although I share many of her concerns, I respectfully disagree with Mona Eltahawy's simplistic assertion that the plight of women in the Arab world is the result of being hated by the rest of society -- more specifically, by men, and even more so by newly elected Islamists. In taking issue with Islamists' view of women, Eltahawy uses a combination of hyperbole and perhaps benign neglect to highlight offensive stances and bury more women-centered ones. Far from constituting a solution, this type of one-dimensional reductionism and stereotyping is one of the problems facing Arab women. Let's be clear: There is misogyny in the Arab world. But if we want progress for Arab women, we must hack at the roots of evil, not at its branches.

 

Indeed, the status of women is a serious challenge in post-revolutionary Egypt. Many Egyptian women suffer from discrimination both in society and in their homes. Some 5 million Egyptian women are the sole breadwinners for their families. Female genital mutilation (FGM) remains a widespread practice in rural areas and Upper Egypt. Sexual harassment abounds on Egyptian streets, and the list goes on. To address these issues, however, we ought to look at the bigger picture: More than 20 percent of young people remain jobless, and almost half of them are women. Illiteracy and poverty -- the twin drivers of discrimination -- are widespread: 20 percent of Egyptians are illiterate, and more than 40 percent live on less than $2 per day.

Read more at Foreign Policy

In light of the political "War on Women" going on in the United States, we must remember that this fight is going on around the world.

In "Distant View of a Minaret," the late and much-neglected Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat begins her short story with a woman so unmoved by sex with her husband that as he focuses solely on his pleasure, she notices a spider web she must sweep off the ceiling and has time to ruminate on her husband's repeated refusal to prolong intercourse until she too climaxes, "as though purposely to deprive her." Just as her husband denies her an orgasm, the call to prayer interrupts his, and the man leaves. After washing up, she loses herself in prayer -- so much more satisfying that she can't wait until the next prayer -- and looks out onto the street from her balcony. She interrupts her reverie to make coffee dutifully for her husband to drink after his nap. Taking it to their bedroom to pour it in front of him as he prefers, she notices he is dead. She instructs their son to go and get a doctor. "She returned to the living room and poured out the coffee for herself. She was surprised at how calm she was," Rifaat writes.

 

In a crisp three-and-a-half pages, Rifaat lays out a trifecta of sex, death, and religion, a bulldozer that crushes denial and defensiveness to get at the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East. There is no sugarcoating it. They don't hate us because of our freedoms, as the tired, post-9/11 American cliché had it. We have no freedoms because they hate us, as this Arab woman so powerfully says.

 

Yes: They hate us. It must be said.

Read more at Foreign Policy