I bumped into a very polite-looking man, who looked at me very politely and asked,  "Why are you hiding your tits? Come on, give me a peek".

He was interviewing me. Toward the middle of the interview, he asked me, "Why do you want to work?"
"Because I like working."
"You mean you like the attention!"
Him: “Okay, you'll get the job. This is the school’s phone number, and this is my private office number."

I didn’t bleed a lot the first day I got my period,
So there were doubts about whether or not it was actually my period.
It was the worst time of my life.
womanhood, period, gender violence, fgm, virginity testing

Baba used to beat us with a whip and a cane for the most trivial reasons.
A broken tea cup, an unfinished plate of food.
Whenever I complained to mama, she’d tell me it was my fault I annoyed baba!
So I grew up thinking this was normal.
Fathers hit their daughters to discipline them.

I was on campus.
I had just finished class and was leaving,
When a security guard grabbed me.
“We’re gathering good and respectable people!” he said.
Something felt wrong.

He was my father’s age,
I met him at Ramses station on my way back to Minya.
He was a professor at Ain Shams University,
And he treated me like a daughter.
He used to call me at my parents’ house to check if I needed anything.

I’m in love with a man who means the world to me.
We’ve been together for 3 years.
He’s married and has children,
But I still love him.
romantic relationships, gender violence, social pressure

I was wearing a headscarf and a long, roomy skirt.
I was walking down the sidewalk,
By the walls of the university.
Soldier-like.
At 2 in the afternoon.
I heard someone walking behind me, moaning.

One of the situations I’ll never forget
Was when I was walking in the street where I live - the street is dark and not well-lit -
And a boy who works at a clinic in the building next to ours had his fly open and his penis sticking out.

How is it that he molests me, and takes away a part of me,
but I’m expected to censor myself when I tell the story?
I regret ever listening to what you had to say,
to what you call traditional or proper or haram.