I was leaving school.
This school was in what people say is one of the most high-end areas in Cairo.
I was wearing gabardine pants and a baggy polo t-shirt.
It was the school uniform.
He was walking towards me.
gender violence, harassment, the street
I never physically harassed a woman.
When I would like a girl, I would go speak to her.
It satisfied my ego.
That was until I saw a girl being harassed in the street.
My father was the first person to touch me.
I used to tell myself that I was imagining it.
When he’d touch me with his leg from behind,
I’d tell myself he was just being playful.
I was on my way to college, and I was in a hurry. I was looking around for an available microbus to get on, when a little boy sexually harassed me.
gender violence, harassment
To my big nipples,
Why do you lose all feeling in bed?
Don’t you know you’re supposed to be an erogenous zone?
I feel nothing from you.
It’s as if you’re not connected to my breasts.
Not connected to my heart.
You disconnected yourself from my heart so I wouldn’t feel pain.
But I’m lacking confidence now.
beauty stadards, body image, harassment
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.
As I was leaving Hijr-Ismail—it can get really crowded there—I felt someone shove their hand between my legs and grope me.
I immediately spun around and started punching the man behind me.
“In front of the Holy Kaaba, you kaafir?!” I screamed.
One time when I was in 10th grade, I got home and my father came home half an hour later.
He went to his room as soon as he got home.
I was going to the kitchen to drink water when I saw him in his room with his hand inside his blue pants.
He was masturbating.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, parents