Headscarves and Hymens Book Summary - Headscarves and Hymens Book explained in key points

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Headscarves and Hymens summary

Name: Headscarves and Hymens
Rating: 3.7 (153 reviews)
Author: Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy

Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution

3.7 (153 ratings)

17 mins

Brief summary

Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy is a feminist manifesto that examines the oppression of women in the Middle East and North Africa. It advocates for a revolution against misogyny and the patriarchy and calls for the liberation of Arab women.

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Headscarves and Hymens
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Open your eyes to the systemic oppression of women in Arab countries.

There is much controversy in the Western world surrounding the veiling of Arab women. Feminists argue that the veil is a means of oppression, enforced by men; traditionalists counter that veiling is a sign of cultural awareness. And Western liberals kindly remind us that we should restrain ourselves from intruding too much into other people’s affairs.

What we’re missing in these debates, however, is that the veil is just one of many issues concerning the broader issue of women’s rights in Arab countries. To tell it straight: women face a dire situation in the Arab world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn about the Arab world’s misogynist culture; how the oppression, abuse and punishment of women is justified by religion and a male-dominated society; and how a nascent Arab feminist movement plans to liberate women from their status as second-class citizens.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn:

what the difference is between a hijab and a niqab;
what happens to a Saudi woman when she doesn’t wear the veil; and
why female genital mutilation is considered a “ceremony” in many Arab lands.

Arab women live amid hostile, misogynistic environments.

Most Westerners are aware that women in the Arab world don’t enjoy equal rights, but might not know of the astounding daily abuse under which many women suffer.

The author believes Islamic religion encourages discrimination, and its influence is directly related to the promotion of a misogynistic culture throughout Arab nations.

Misogyny – hatred of women – is rampant in the Arabic-speaking areas of the Middle East and North Africa. Many people in these regions subscribe to ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam, ideas which spawn societies obsessed with the control of women.

This is especially true among Salafi groups or those who follow the Sunni sect of Islam, as well as in political groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Shiite militias in Iraq. In general, the social control of women and inequality between the sexes are the norm throughout the Islamic world.

In many places, family matters are handled by religious courts that enforce Islamic laws. These laws are supposed to protect families but fail to prevent atrocities such as child marriage, marital rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

In Egypt, for example, a court can decide that an Egyptian man may beat his wife with “good intentions” and not face any consequences. In Yemen, 2013, an eight-year-old girl was forced to marry a man five times her senior. She died on her wedding night from the internal bleeding she sustained as a result of her husband raping her.

But despite such horrific cases, voices for child marriage are more prevalent than those opposed. Yemeni clerics essentially support pedophilia by referencing the example of the Prophet Mohammed, whose second wife was a child when they were wed.

Because of practices like child marriage, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report, which measures levels of inequality, found that no Arab country qualified to appear in the list of top 100 countries working to close the gender gap.

Morocco, a nation that has been questionably praised as supporting “progressive” family policies, was listed at 129; Yemen appeared at the very bottom of the list.

While the situation of women in many Arabic-speaking nations is dire, many people aren’t aware of the specifics of what being an Arab woman is like in daily life. Let’s find out why.

When it comes to misogyny, Arab women and Western liberals remain largely silent.

Since they’re brought up in a culture that rewards obedience, Arab women often don’t know how to express their feelings toward their male oppressors. At the same time, people living in Western countries often shy away from directly critiquing what is seen as misogynistic behavior.

Here are a few reasons why silence is so prevalent among both groups.

While there are many reasons to wear a headscarf, Arab women have little choice in the matter.

Conservative Islamic societies expect women to cover their faces. But few critics have looked behind the veil, so to speak, of this religious custom to understand how it came about.

In the Arab world, there are two ways to wear the veil. The hijab covers the head and chest. The niqab covers the head, chest and face.

Virginity is held sacred, thus Arab girls are “protected” with dangerous, often deadly, genital cutting.

While Arab society demands its women be covered, it raises the stakes when it comes to sex. For many Arab cultures, it’s critically important that a woman’s hymen be “protected.”

An intact hymen, the small membrane that partly covers the opening to a woman’s vagina, is believed both historically and in many unscientific circles to be a guarantor of virginity. Thus the state of a woman’s hymen before marriage is diligently policed by Muslim families as well as clerics.

Arab women face sexual harassment and physical abuse both in public and at home.

Women living in Arab countries face the threat of abuse constantly. Outside the home they are frequently sexually harassed; the police also pose a threat; and often, home is no safe zone.

According to a 2013 United Nations survey, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women reported experiencing sexual harassment in public, the majority of instances being unsolicited touching or verbal attacks.

Arab feminists are using the internet to reach out to other women, sparking meaningful change.

Despite the constant fear of repressive, demeaning or even violent treatment, Arab women are beginning to take a stand against misogyny in society.

While many Arab nations that follow sharia law maintain that women are not ready to receive equal treatment in society, Arab feminist activists are bravely proving them wrong.

Even during liberating revolutionary movements, women have had to combat sexual violence.

While feminists today fight for women’s rights, such activism in the Middle East is nothing new. Feminist action in the Arab world goes back to 1923, when Egyptian feminist Huda Sha’arawi started a movement for women to shed the veil.

More recently, Arab women in 2010 and 2011 poured into the streets during the Arab Spring, taking part in demonstrations against oppressive government regimes.

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What is Headscarves and Hymens about?

Headscarves and Hymens (2015) chronicles the many levels of abuse suffered by women in the Arab world and what brave feminist activists are doing about these injustices. These blinks describe the various forms of oppression women face, from child marriage to virginity tests, and call for a sexual revolution in Islamic nations.

Best quote from Headscarves and Hymens

90 percent of married women in Egypt have their genitals cut to remain pure for their husbands.

—Mona Eltahawy

Who should read Headscarves and Hymens?

Feminists of all colors, genders and religions
Political or social scientists interested in gender inequality in Arab countries
Anyone concerned about human rights.

About the Author

Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-American journalist based in New York City. She has covered current events in Egypt and general political and social issues in the Middle East. Headscarves and Hymens is her first book and expands on her controversial 2012 article published in Foreign Affairs on Muslim men, entitled Why Do They Hate Us?

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