Book Review: Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution By Mona Eltahawy

Over the bank holiday weekend I finally finished Mona Eltahawy’s treatise of misogyny in the Arab world. The issues comprised in her chapters dominate headlines every week implicitly and explicitly. As a follow up to her immensely controversial Foreign Policy article, it is sobering, shocking yet insightful mixture of fact and fury that highlights several of the struggles faced by women in the Middle East and North Africa region in a ‘post-Arab Spring’ era. Being Egyptian herself, many of testimonies from women and girls throughout the region explain the extraordinary way the Egyptian Arab Spring actually managed to further oppress women. In the book she comprehensively outlines the statistics and implications of several key issues facing Arab women today including FGM, child marriage, domestic abuse, street harassment and sexual assault. In doing so she paints a picture of women’s rights in the Arab world as a fairly dismal affair but coupled with stories of progress and calls for revolution it makes a compelling and rousing read.

One of criticisms of Eltahawy’s book has been that it makes several vast generalisations about the ‘Arab region’ based on her experience of Egyptian politics and this is perhaps one of its few flaws. Having said that her comparisons between those at vastly different ends of the poverty (Yemen, Saudi Arabia for example) or religious extremist (Qatar and Lebanon) spectrum clearly demonstrate her point that the common denominator here is not wealth, poverty or interpretations of Islam but in fact what unites Arab states is patriarchy. Those who have ‘judged a book by its cover’ will also critique her presumed Western arrogance in assuming she is denouncing the region for its cultural barbarity. In reality, the book actually contains one of the best handlings of the cultural relativism argument I have read to date. Her claim that she maintains the right to criticise her culture in ways she would reject from others allows her to resist reinforcing Western racism and arrogance surrounding women’s rights whilst simultaneously ensuring women’s dissent is not silenced by the desire to resist this racism. This has been a problem throughout history where women are silenced by their societies because they do not wish to support enemy stereotypes. It is so important that these binaries are deconstructed to tell women’s true experiences. This approach is probably my favourite thing about the book. I also particularly like the way Eltahawy explains that she refuses to call girls who have been through FGM or sexual assault ‘victims’ and rather prefers the word ‘survivor’ because it implies bravery and strength not victimhood.

Eltahawy writes ardently as she calls upon the Middle East to personalise its insurgency and take the state/street revolution into its homes and bedrooms. With this she is reaching to the heart of the original feminist trope the - personal is political - and calling on the courage of young girls to challenge centuries of traditional, religion and culture around their dining room tables. My only worry is that this is easier said than done and whilst I resist asking Eltahawy to ‘check her privilege’ the only pitfall of this book is perhaps her lack of acknowledgement of her own wisdom, experience and opportunity. Overall though, this is a must read for anyone interested in the transnational feminist project and emancipating women and girls from outright misogyny that remains veiled in religion and liberal cultural relativism.