Mona Eltahawy: Let's Stay Back & Fight

Mona Eltahawy  is a powerful feminist author/public speaker on Arab & Muslim issues who is based in Cairo. She writes for NYT as an opinion columnist. She has written essays and op-eds for publications worldwide on Egypt and the Islamic world, including women's issues and Muslim political and social affairs. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and the Miami Herald among others. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens was published in May 2015.

Last night on Twitter, she stirred a topic which is super important to address. Mona send out 16 heartfelt tweets about how it’s crazy that women have to fight to share their honest thoughts on Twitter vs men with their entitlement of owning the whole space.

Many women end up leaving Twitter because of a huge array of attacks from men. Yes the attack is on Twitter, but it's not any different from the ones which happen out in the public space. Women very often get called on for sharing their honest feelings on Twitter. Twitter is place where one can actually say what they want regardless of any sort of limitations of sex, caste and religion. But it’s amazing how even that gets nabbed more often that we can imagine.

Mona shares how she has received backlash from men right from her letter to editor days for sharing what she feels. She mentioned how she has been dealing with this for a long while, but she has only become stronger. And she is here to support every other woman who don’t have other means to express their thoughts freely.    

She highlights how Saudi, Indian, Black American, American Muslim feminist tweet at a great personal risk, but their presence is important for everyone. She asked women to embrace the space, and not tolerate any sort of shutting down calls. The idea is to stand strong and freely share what they like. The idea is to have zero tolerance to bullshit. Twitter has a lot of support to offer as well, find that love and support - and stay back and fight. Backing down shouldn’t exist.

Check out @monaeltahway’s Tweets below -

Also read her popular post on Guardian - All religions are obsessed with my Vagina