Over the years this blog has become less personal and more
of an outlet for current events in Egypt or socio-political commentary,
sometimes based on personal experience.
This post will be very personal.
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The tweet read, “All I could see was leering faces . .
sneering & jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving
lions”.
Another woman attacked in Tahrir Square. I knew without
opening the attached link. I opened it anyway. I didn’t want to read the story;
I had to.
The most detailed first-person account of a sexual attack in
Tahrir I’ve ever read. That’s what was in the link. I was sitting in a noisy
café listening to – of all things – a song called “Past the Point of No Return.”
I turned it off, and I read.
I was stripped naked…
Hundreds of men… forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way… A small
minority of men… tried to protect me… I felt surprisingly calm… Please God.
Please make it stop… Women surrounded me and tried to cover my naked body… The
men outside… wanted my blood… I was barefoot, dodging broken glass… We
eventually… reached a government hospital… we were turned away… “Are you
married? A virgin?”… I was refused examination and treatment.
An hour later I can’t get her words out of my head.
What if it had been
me?
I was physically harassed once during the 30 months I’ve
spent in Cairo. In comparison it was nothing. Yet a year and a half later I
refuse to go anywhere in Maadi by myself because the memory makes me ill and
nervous (Maadi has the highest concentration of Western foreigners of any
neighborhood in Cairo).
It unnerved me enough that this is only the third time I’ve
ever mentioned the incident.
I may not be blonde, but I’m young and pretty with fair skin
and light eyes. I speak enough Arabic to talk to a cab driver but no more.
Sure, I’m good at reading crowds. I’ve been going to Egyptian demonstrations
longer than most Egyptians. Yes, I’ve actually taken a class on risk
management.
But the crowd can change in a moment.
I’m not infallible. Gut instinct is not infallible. What if,
wanting that one last photo, I stayed just a minute too long? What if the
situation changed too quickly for me to get away? What if I got caught up in a conversation
and didn’t notice the crowd shift?
What if, what if, what
if.
They’re useless but I can’t get them out of my head. I keep
picturing myself – graphically – in this woman’s position. I picture my
reflection in the mirror. It’s terrifying.
I love Egypt. I
wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. There are things I hate but I’m still here and I
don’t want to leave. At the same time, I came to Egypt as a journalist and I
haven’t gone to Tahrir Square in weeks.
I tell myself I’m being lazy, that I should go down and take
some pictures and judge the feel of the crowd for myself. After all, I was in
Tahrir Square on the 25th and the 28th of January. I was
by Maspiro the night dozens were killed in clashes between Coptic Christian
demonstrators and the military. I was in Mohamed Mahmoud Street choking on tear
gas alongside Egyptian men and women last November.
But as more and more women report graphic sexual assaults in
Tahrir I’m terrified I’ll be next. I loathe that fear almost more than I loathe
the fact that the fear is warranted.
I remember going to Tahrir and not being touched by a single
man, except honest-to-goodness accidents. The last few weeks, I don’t know a
single female who has gone to Tahrir without being groped at least once.
So what do I do? Stay safely in Zamalek and talk politics
with my friends? Offer opinions on the “current situation” without actually
going out in the streets, something I love? Pack up and move somewhere I can
wear skirts and sleeveless shirts without a leering man with a disgusting
comment on every single street corner?
Scratch that option. Recent statistics show at least 1 in 6 college-age men in
America will admit to raping a woman in anonymous surveys, so long as the word
‘rape’ is left out of the definition (“rape” is defined by the insertion of any
object into any orifice of the body without consent).
Anyone who knows me knows if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s
helpless. Yet against this I am utterly and completely helpless. It’s
frustrating and infuriating and I feel I’m losing a battle I have no idea how
to fight.
I almost didn’t post this. I thought, what’s the use of one more blog post? But we cannot doubt the power
of our own voices. Eventually it will be that one pissed off woman outing her
harasser in the street, that one man jumping between a woman and her attacker,
maybe even that one angry blog post that tips the balance.
If we – men and women – stay silent, we will lose. So be loud.
Be insistent. Make a scene and refuse to be silenced and we will win.
